Walter Norris Kirn (born August 3, 1962) is an American
novelist
A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...
,
literary critic
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
, and
essay
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...
ist. He is the author of eight books, most notably ''
Up in the Air'', which was made into a
film of the same name starring
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by George Clooney, numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Awards, British Academy Film A ...
.
Overview
As a writer, he has published a collection of short stories and several novels, including ''
Thumbsucker'', which was made into a 2005 film featuring
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Charles Reeves ( ; born September 2, 1964) is a Canadian actor. Born in Beirut and raised in Toronto, Reeves began acting in theatre productions and in television films before making his feature film debut in '' Youngblood'' (1986). ...
and
Vince Vaughn
Vincent Anthony Vaughn (born March 28, 1970) is an American actor.
Vaughn began acting in the late 1980s, appearing in minor television roles before attaining wider recognition with the 1996 comedy-drama film '' Swingers''. He has appeared in ...
; ''
Up in the Air'', which was made into a 2009 film directed by
Jason Reitman
Jason R. Reitman (; born October 19, 1977) is a Canadian-American actor and filmmaker, best known for directing the films ''Thank You for Smoking'' (2005), ''Juno'' (2007), '' Up in the Air'' (2009), ''Young Adult'' (2011), and '' Ghostbusters: ...
; and ''
Mission to America''. The
film adaptation
A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...
of ''Up In The Air'', which starred
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by George Clooney, numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Awards, British Academy Film A ...
and
Anna Kendrick
Anna Cooke Kendrick (born August 9, 1985) is an American actress. She has received various accolades, including a Satellite Award, five Teen Choice Awards, three MTV Movie Awards, and nominations for an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award a ...
, was a commercial success and went on to receive critical acclaim as well as numerous nominations and awards. In 2005, he took over blogger
Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Michael Sullivan (born 10 August 1963) is a British-American author, editor, and blogger. Sullivan is a political commentator, a former editor of ''The New Republic'', and the author or editor of six books. He started a political blog, ' ...
's publication for a few weeks while Sullivan was on vacation. He also wrote ''
The Unbinding'', an Internet-only novel that was published in ''
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
'' magazine. His most recent work, ''
Blood Will Out'', is a personalized account of his relationship with the convicted murderer and imposter
Clark Rockefeller
Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter (born February 21, 1961) is a German convicted murderer and impostor. Born in West Germany, he is currently serving a prison sentence in the U.S. state of California. After moving to the U.S. in his late teens, Gerha ...
.
He has also reviewed books for ''
New York Magazine
''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker'', ...
'' and has written for ''
The New York Times Book Review
''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...
'' and ''
New York Times Sunday Magazine
''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...
'', and is a contributing editor of ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'', where he has received popularity for his entertaining and sometimes humorous first-person essays among other articles of interest. He also served as an American cultural correspondent for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. He graduated with an A.B. in English from
in 1983 after completing a 22-page-long senior thesis entitled "Entangling Breaths (Poems)." Following that, he obtained a second undergraduate degree in English Literature at
, where he was a Keasbey Memorial Foundation Scholar.
. After high school, he attended
for one year before transferring to Princeton University.
when he was twelve, but Kirn is no longer affiliated with the church. In 1995, Kirn married Maggie McGuane, daughter of actress
. Kirn was 32 at the time; McGuane was 19.
The couple had two children but have since divorced. Kirn is now married to magazine writer Amanda Fortini. The two split their time between
.