Stephen Wright (born 1946) is a novelist based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

known for his use of surrealistic imagery and dark comedy. His work has varied from hallucinatory accounts of war ('' Meditations in Green''), a family drama among UFO cultists ('' M31: A Family Romance''), carnivalesque novel on a serial killer ('' Going Native''), to a picaresque taking place during the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

('' The Amalgamation Polka''). '' Going Native'' was ranked #13 on

Larry McCaffery Lawrence F. McCaffery Jr. (born May 13, 1946) is an American literary critic, editor, and retired professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University. His work and teaching focuses on postmodern literature, contemporary ...

's 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction.

Biography

Stephen Wright was born in

Warren, Pennsylvania Warren is a city in Warren County, Pennsylvania, United States, located along the Allegheny River. The population was 9,404 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Warren County. It is home to the headquarters of the Allegheny National Fores ...

. He was drafted in the army and served at the

Phu Bai Combat Base Phu Bai Combat Base (also known as Phu Bai Airfield and Camp Hochmuth) is a former U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps base south of Huế, in central Vietnam. History 1962-5 The Army Security Agency, operating under cover of the 3rd Radio Rese ...

during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

. When he returned, he received his Master of Fine Arts from the

Iowa Writers' Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative W ...

. He has received a Whiting Award in Fiction, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a

Lannan Literary Fellowship The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional ...

. Wright has taught writing and literature at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, Brown University, and

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

Work

* '' Meditations in Green'', (1983) * '' M31: A Family Romance'', (1988), * '' Going Native'', (1994), * '' The Amalgamation Polka'', (2006) * ''Processed Cheese'', 2020

Quotes

"Precisely that brutal hallucination we desperately wanted to end."

Don DeLillo Donald Richard DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, perf ...

on '' Meditations in Green''. "A sensational prime time novel...a pornographic twilight zone of beebee-eyed serial killers, drug-stunned pants-dropping road-warriors and 'marauding armies of mental vampires,' a nightmarish country of unparalleled savagery, where there is no longer any membrane between screen and life and the monster image feed is inexhaustible."

Robert Coover Robert Lowell Coover (born February 4, 1932) is an American novelist, short story writer, and T.B. Stowell Professor Emeritus in Literary Arts at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction. Background ...

on ''Going Native''. "This dark and lyrical tale of madness and prophecy speaks uncannily from within its period, in the tradition of heartbroken humor which America's lapses of faith in its own promise have always evoked in the finest of our storytellers, among whom Stephen Wright here honorably takes his place."

Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...

on '' The Amalgamation Polka''. "For Wright, America, past and present, is Wonderland, a place of marvels and horrors from which not even the fortunate escape with their heads. "

Laura Miller (writer) Laura Miller is an American journalist and critic based in New York City. She is a co-founder of Salon.com. Early life Miller was raised as a Catholic and grew up in California. She has since said she deplores the Church's "guilt-mongering and ...

, front page, '' New York Times Book Review''. "Brutal subject matter and a knife-edged style are the formula for noir and '' Going Native'' is glitteringly noir. Often it reminds me of

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

' deliciously sleazy ''

Touch of Evil ''Touch of Evil'' is a 1958 American film noir written and directed by Orson Welles, who also stars in the film. The screenplay was loosely based on the contemporary Whit Masterson novel ''Badge of Evil'' (1956). The cast included Charlton Hes ...

''." ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' “Wright is a star of the first magnitude.” ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

References

External links

Profile at The Whiting Foundation
1946 births Living people 20th-century American novelists American male novelists United States Army personnel of the Vietnam War United States Army soldiers 20th-century American male writers {{US-novelist-1940s-stub