Noah Gordon (November 11, 1926November 22, 2021) was an American novelist.

Early life and career

Gordon was born in

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...

, on November 11, 1926, the son of a pawnbroker. He served in the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. He reported for the ''

Worcester Telegram The ''Telegram & Gazette'' (and ''Sunday Telegram'') is the only daily newspaper of Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the c ...

'' until he was hired by the '' Boston Herald'' in 1959.

Works and reception

Some of the topics covered within his novels include

medical history The medical history, case history, or anamnesis (from Greek: ἀνά, ''aná'', "open", and μνήσις, ''mnesis'', "memory") of a patient is information gained by a physician by asking specific questions, either to the patient or to other peo ...

and medical ethics. Later he began to focus more on themes relating to the

Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...

and

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

cultural history. Gordon's debut novel, ''The Rabbi'', spent 26 weeks on

The New York Times Best Seller list ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

in 1965. When publishing '' The Physician'', the book was picked up by

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

- Germany, which promoted the book in Europe, where Gordon became very popular in Spain and Italy. His novel '' The Last Jew'' won "Que Leer Prize" (Spain) and "Boccaccio Literary Prize" (Italy). Though Gordon's reception internationally has been quite strong, as of 2015, the ''Boston Globe'' described Gordon as relatively unknown in the United States. ''New York Times'' writer Carey Goldberg described a similar tension between Gordon's widespread popularity in Germany and relative lack of awareness in the United States in 1996. The reasons for the European success of his novel ''The Physician'' were discussed in the '' Forward''. His novel ''Shaman'' won the first James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction in 1993.

Personal life

Gordon had three children with his wife, Lorraine ('' née'' Seay). He died on November 22, 2021, in Dedham, Massachusetts, at the age of 95.Writer Noah Gordon, author of ‘The Doctor’, dies at 95
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Novels

* '' The Rabbi'' (1965) * ''The Death Committee'' (1969) * ''The Jerusalem Diamond'' (1979) * '' The Last Jew'' (2000) * ''Sam and Other Animal Stories'' (2002) (children's stories) * '' The Winemaker'' (2007)

Cole family trilogy

* '' The Physician'' (1986) ( film adaption in 2013) * ''Shaman'' (1992) * ''Matters of Choice'' (1995)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Noah 1926 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American novelists American male novelists Jewish American writers James Fenimore Cooper Prize winners Journalists from Massachusetts Military personnel from Massachusetts Writers from Worcester, Massachusetts United States Army personnel of World War II