Robie Mayhew Macauley (May 31, 1919 – November 20, 1995) was an American editor, novelist and critic whose literary career spanned more than 50 years.

Biography

Early life

Robie Mayhew Macauley was born on May 31, 1919, in

Grand Rapids Grand Rapids is the largest city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, United States. With a population of 198,917 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 200,117 in 2024, Grand Rapids is the List of municipalities ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

. He was the older brother of the noted photographer and movie producer C. Cameron Macauley. His uncle owned and published the Hudsonville newspaper, ''The Ottawa Times'' (named for Ottawa County), and Macauley used the printing press to publish his first books of fiction and poetry. At age 18 he printed and bound a limited edition of ''Solomon's Cat'', a previously unpublished poem by Walter Duranty, setting the type and engraving the illustrations.

Education

As an undergraduate at Olivet College, he was a student of

Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review (1924), The Transatlant ...

(describing him as "my first teacher and editorial mentor.").Macauley's 1950 introduction to Ford's ''Parade’s End'' includes his reflections as an undergraduate. Macauley then won a three-year literary prize scholarship and transferred to

Kenyon College Kenyon College ( ) is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1824 by Episcopal Bishop Philander Chase. It is the oldest private instituti ...

to be a student of John Crowe Ransom. There he lived in a

writer's house Writers' homes (sometimes writer's, author's or literary houses) are locations where writers lived. Frequently, these homes are preserved as historic house museums and literary tourism destinations, called writer's home museums, especially when t ...

with

Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects ...

, Peter Taylor, and Randall Jarrell. He was elected to

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States. It was founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, ...

during February 1941, and the same year was awarded a fellowship to attend the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. He graduated ''

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

'' from Kenyon in June 1941.

War years

He was drafted in March 1942 and served in World War II as a special agent in the

Counterintelligence Corps The Counter Intelligence Corps (Army CIC) was a World War II and early Cold War intelligence agency within the United States Army consisting of highly trained special agents. Its role was taken over by the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps in 1961 and ...

(CIC) with the 97th Infantry Division, in the " Ruhr Pocket" and then in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

after the war. On April 23, 1945, Macauley's division helped liberate

Flossenbürg concentration camp Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Unlike other concentration camps, it was located in a remote area, in the Fichtel Mountains of Bavaria, adjacent to the town of Flos ...

. Macauley later said, "I entered some concentration camps the day we liberated them--the most horrifying days of my life. My job was to interview survivors. Most of the bodies that I saw had been stripped and it was impossible to tell which were those of Jews and which of Christians. Nazi murder was a great leveler, fully ecumenical... Hitler's bell tolled for all..." Macauley wrote four autobiographical short stories based on his experiences doing intelligence work, collected in ''The End of Pity and Other Stories'', (1957). In "A Nest of Gentlefolk", (winner of the 1949 Furioso Prize) he describes the CIC's futile search for

Nazi war criminals The following is a list of people who were formally indicted for committing war crimes or crimes against humanity on behalf of the Axis powers during World War II, including those who were acquitted or never received judgement. It does not inc ...

in the war-ravaged town of

Hohenlohe The House of Hohenlohe () is a German princely dynasty. It formerly ruled an immediate territory within the Holy Roman Empire, which was divided between several branches. In 1806, the area of Hohenlohe was 1,760 km² and its estimated pop ...

; in ''The Thin Voice'' he describes the unsuccessful attempt by an American officer to prevent some freed Russian POWs from killing a vicious collaborator in Heiligenkreuz, Germany; in "The End of Pity" he tells the story of a woman's suicide after visiting her ruined house in a combat zone in Oberkassel; and in "The Mind is its Own Place" he describes his brief post-war encounter in Karuizawa, Japan with Captain Kermit Beahan, bombardier of the bomber "The

Bockscar ''Bockscar'', sometimes called ''Bock's Car'', is the United States Army Air Forces Boeing B-29 Superfortress, B-29 bomber that dropped the Fat Man, Fat Man nuclear weapon over the Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War II in the secondand ...

" who released the

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...

over

Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...

. Macauley described Beahan as "a young captain with a college-boy face hohad suffered some strange mutation of feeling so deep and so destructive..." According to Macauley's letters archived at the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the Public university, public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referre ...

, while in Karuizawa he was friends with former Japanese Ambassador to the US Saburō Kurusu and German Admiral Paul Wenneker, as well as pianist Leo Sirota and artist Paul Jacoulet. He was also acquainted with three-time former Japanese Prime Minister Prince Fumimaro Konoe, to whom he presented a copy of
The American Leviathan: The Republic in the Machine Age
', written by Charles A. Beard. In his capacity as CIC Station Chief, he supervised the arrests, on October 30, 1945, of a number of prominent Nazi leaders who were in hiding in Karuizawa: Franz-Josef Spahn,

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

Gruppenleiter in Japan; Paul Sperringer, a former SS Stormtrooper and assistant to

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

Chief Colonel Josef Meisinger; Karl Hamel, Meisinger's secretary; Charles Schmidt-Jucheim, a former San Francisco police officer and an ex-US Army sergeant who attended Gestapo training in Germany and renounced his US citizenship; Karlfried Graf Dürckheim, chief of

propaganda in Japan; Heinrich Loy, a Gestapo spy who allegedly participated in the Munich

Beer Hall Putsch The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,Dan Moorhouse, ed schoolshistory.org.uk, accessed 2008-05-31.Known in German as the or was a failed coup d'état by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, Erich Ludendorff and other leaders i ...

; Dr. Karl Kindermann, Meisinger's Jewish interpreter who was an informant for the Gestapo; Alrich Mosaner, chief of the

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth ( , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth wing of the German Nazi Party. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. From 1936 until 1945, it was th ...

in Japan; and Otto Burmeister, chief of the Nazi education system in Japan. Most of these individuals were later released by the CIC. Robie Macauley was awarded the

Legion of Merit The Legion of Merit (LOM) is a Awards and decorations of the United States military, military award of the United States Armed Forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievemen ...

for his work in detaining members of the Gestapo in Japan.

Career

Iowa Writers Workshop

After the war, he taught briefly at

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains within the Hudson River Historic District ...

then worked at ''

Gourmet Gourmet (, ) is a cultural idea associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by their high level of refined and elaborate food preparation techniques and displays of balanced meals that have ...

'' Magazine and for

Henry Holt and Company Henry Holt and Company is an American book-publishing company based in New York City. One of the oldest publishers in the United States, it was founded in 1866 by Henry Holt (publisher), Henry Holt and Frederick Leypoldt. The company publishes in ...

. During 1947 he taught at the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop with Paul Engle, and Anthony Hecht (with whom Macauley had served during World War II), where he befriended

Flannery O'Connor Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. O'Connor was a Southern writer who of ...

, advising her on drafts of her first novel, '' Wise Blood''. He completed his MFA at the University of Iowa in 1950 and spent the next three years at the Woman's College (now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) where he taught modern American literature and writing.

The Congress for Cultural Freedom

Macauley received a

Rockefeller Fellowship The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller ("Seni ...

and during 1953 Cord Meyer offered him a position in the International Organizations Division of the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

. With John Crowe Ransom's encouragement, Macauley accepted and relocated to Paris where he participated in the

Congress for Cultural Freedom The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was an anti-communist cultural organization founded on 26 June 1950 in West Berlin. At its height, the CCF was active in thirty-five countries. In 1966 it was revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency w ...

. Macauley assisted in the publication of '' Quadrant'' magazine (edited by

James McAuley James Phillip McAuley (12 October 1917 – 15 October 1976) was an Australian academic, poet, journalist, literary critic, and a prominent convert to Roman Catholicism. He was involved in the Ern Malley poetry hoax. Life and career McAuley w ...

), an Australian literary journal that at the time had "an anticommunist thrust". He was a U.S. representative to the

International PEN PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous Internati ...

Congress in Tokyo (1957) and Brazil (1960).Biography of Robie Mayhew Macauley

''The Kenyon Review''

During 1958 he returned to the US to succeed John Crowe Ransom as editor of ''

The Kenyon Review ''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, home of Kenyon College. ''The Review'' was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959. ''T ...

''. Ransom described Macauley as "wise and thorough, thoroughly experienced, an excellent critic...; a pretty good fiction writer who has just begun to get a lot better; and a person universally admired and liked." During the next seven years, Macauley published works by

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

Nadine Gordimer Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognised as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great ben ...

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were b ...

, Randall Jarrell,

Richmond Lattimore Richmond Alexander Lattimore (May 6, 1906 – February 26, 1984) was an American poet and classicist known for his translations of the Greek classics, especially his versions of the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey''. Biography Richmond Alexander Lattimo ...

Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing ( Tayler; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British novelist. She was born to British parents in Qajar Iran, Persia, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where ...

, V. S. Naipaul,

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels ''Black ...

Frank O'Connor Frank O'Connor (born Michael Francis O'Donovan; 17 September 1903 – 10 March 1966) was an Irish author and translator. He wrote poetry (original and translations from Irish), dramatic works, memoirs, journalistic columns and features on as ...

, V. S. Pritchett,

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, Literary genre, genres and Theme (narrative), th ...

, J. F. Powers, Karl Shapiro,

Jean Stafford Jean Stafford (July 1, 1915 – March 26, 1979) was an American short story writer and novelist who shared the same name with country music singer Jean Stafford. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for '' The Collected Stories of Jean Staffo ...

, Christina Stead, Peter Taylor, and

Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, literary critic and professor at Yale University. He was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern ...

, as well as articles, essays and book reviews by Eric Bentley,

Cleanth Brooks Cleanth Brooks ( ; October 16, 1906 – May 10, 1994) was an American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to New Criticism in the mid-20th century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher ...

, R. P. Blackmur,

Malcolm Cowley Malcolm Cowley (August 24, 1898 – March 27, 1989) was an American writer, editor, historian, poet, and literary critic. His best known works include his first book of poetry, ''Blue Juniata'' (1929), and his memoir, ''Exile's Return'' ( ...

Richard Ellmann Richard David Ellmann, Fellow of the British Academy, FBA (March 15, 1918 – May 13, 1987) was an American Literary criticism, literary critic and biographer of the Irish writers James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and W. B. Yeats, William Butler Yeats. ...

Leslie Fiedler Leslie Aaron Fiedler (March 8, 1917 – January 29, 2003) was an American literary critic, known for his interest in mythography and his championing of genre fiction. His work incorporates the application of psychological theories to American ...

, Martin Green, and

Raymond Williams Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contribu ...

. In 1964, he served as a fiction judge for the

National Book Awards The National Book Awards (NBA) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. ...

together with

John Cheever John William Cheever (May 27, 1912 – June 18, 1982) was an American short story writer and novelist. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs". His fiction is mostly set on the Upper East Side of Manhattan; the Westchester suburbs ...

and Philip Rahv. He received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

and took a sabbatical in 1964–65 as a

Fulbright Research Fellow The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

''Playboy'' Magazine

In 1966 Macauley became the fiction editor at ''

Playboy ''Playboy'' (stylized in all caps) is an American men's Lifestyle journalism, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, available both online and in print. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, funded in part by a $ ...

'', where he published fiction by

Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; June 10, 1915April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only write ...

Michael Crichton John Michael Crichton (; October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008) was an American author, screenwriter and filmmaker. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films. His literary works heavil ...

Roald Dahl Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British author of popular children's literature and short stories, a poet, screenwriter and a wartime Flying ace, fighter ace. His books have sold more than 300 million copies ...

James Dickey James Lafayette Dickey (February 2, 1923 January 19, 1997) was an American poet, novelist, critic, and lecturer. He was appointed the 18th United States Poet Laureate in 1966. His other accolades included the National Book Award for Poetry a ...

, J. P. Donleavy,

John Irving John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt Jr.; March 2, 1942) is an American and Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of his fourth novel '' Th ...

Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler (, ; ; ; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest, and was educated in Austria, apart from his early school years. In 1931, Koestler j ...

John le Carré David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. A "sophist ...

Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( ; Kroeber; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the ''Earthsea'' fantas ...

Bernard Malamud Bernard Malamud (April 26, 1914 – March 18, 1986) was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish ...

, Mary McCarthy,

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...

Seán Ó Faoláin Seán Proinsias Ó Faoláin (27 February 1900 – 20 April 1991) was one of the most influential figures in 20th-century Irish culture. A short-story writer of international repute, he was also a leading commentator and critic. Biography Ó ...

, Anne Sexton,

Irwin Shaw Irwin Shaw (February 27, 1913 – May 16, 1984) was an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best known for two of his novels: '' The Young Lions'' (1 ...

, Isaac B. Singer,

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tar ...

, and

Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut ( ; November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American author known for his Satire, satirical and darkly humorous novels. His published work includes fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfict ...

as well as poetry by

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko (; 18 July 1933 – 1 April 2017) was a Soviet and Russian poet, novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, publisher, actor, editor, university professor, and director of several films. Biography Early lif ...

. David H. Lynn, writing in ''

'', said that "in the years when he was fiction editor, ''

'' was second only to ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' in prestige as a place for serious writers to display their talents." During this period he also taught fiction at the MFA program at the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the Universi ...

, Circle Campus. In 1967, he co-initiated the

Council of Literary Magazines and Presses A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or nation ...

together with Reed Whittemore (''The Carleton Miscellany'', ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' (often abbreviated as ''TNR'') is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts from a left-wing perspective. It publishes ten print magazines a year and a daily online platform. ''The New Y ...

''); Jules Chametzky ('' The Massachusetts Review''); George Plimpton (''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published new works by Jack Kerouac, ...

''); and William Phillips ('' The Partisan Review'').

Houghton Mifflin

In 1978, he became a senior editor at

Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...

, where he was responsible for publishing '' The Mosquito Coast'', ''The Marrakesh One-Two'', '' Shoeless Joe'', and several works of nonfiction such as ''Breaking the Ring: The Bizarre Case of the Walker Family Spy Ring'', ''Techno-Bandits'', '' Getting to Yes'', '' The Puzzle Palace'', '' The Bunker'', '' The Dungeon Master'', and '' The Nine Nations of North America''. He later taught at the

Harvard Extension School Harvard Extension School (HES) is the Continuing education, continuing education School of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1910, it is o ...

and during 1990 co-initiated and co-directed the Ploughshares International Writing Seminars, a summer program of the

Emerson College Emerson College is a private college in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It also maintains campuses in Los Angeles and Well, Limburg, Netherlands (Kasteel Well). Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a "school of Public Speaking, o ...

European Center at Kasteel Well in the Netherlands.

Death

Macauley died of

non-Hodgkin's lymphoma Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), also known as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is a group of blood cancers that includes all types of lymphomas except Hodgkin lymphomas. Symptoms include enlarged lymph nodes, fever, night sweats, weight loss, and tire ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

on November 20, 1995.

Publications

Novels

During his life Robie Macauley published two novels, ''The Disguises of Love'' (1951), the story of a university professor's love affair with a student and how it affects his wife and son, and ''A Secret History of Time to Come'' (1979), an adventure thriller set in a devastated post-apocalypse America 200 years in the future. His last two novels, ''Citadel of Ice: Life and Death in a Glacier Fortress during World War I'', (2014), and ''The Escape of Alfred Dreyfus'', (2016) were published posthumously.

Short stories

His short fiction appeared in '' Furioso'', the ''

North American Review The ''North American Review'' (''NAR'') was the first literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale (journalist), Nathan Hale and others. It was published continuously until 1940, after which i ...

'', ''

The Sewanee Review ''The Sewanee Review'' is an American literary magazine established in 1892. It is the oldest continuously published quarterly in the United States. It publishes original fiction and poetry, essays, reviews, and literary criticism. History '' ...

'', '' The Southern Review'', '' Shenandoah'', ''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentleman ...

'', ''

Fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

'', '' Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'', ''

Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Internationalism * World citizen, one who eschews traditional geopolitical divisions derived from national citizenship * Cosmopolitanism, the idea that all of humanity belongs to a single moral community * Cosmopolitan ...

'', the '' Virginia Quarterly Review'' and ''

'', for which he was awarded the Furioso Prize (1949), The O. Henry Award (1951, 1956 and 1967), and the John Train Humor Prize (1990). In spite of his expertise and experience, Macauley's own fiction received only moderate recognition. "Robie Macauley's prose, like the best poetry, has a startling economy of means and precision of language", declared Melvin J. Friedman in ''Contemporary Novelists''. "The author's work", continued Friedman, "is the enviable product of years spent in close and sympathetic relationship with the best novels from

Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...

through

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

." David H. Lynn, editor of ''

'', described Macauley's fiction as "subtle, stinging, disturbing, witty." Eugene Goodheart, commenting on ''The End of Pity and Other Stories'', said "Macauley has all the gifts of a master short story writer: narrative power, a quick and vivid imagination of character...a capacity for delivering the scene that at once surprises and satisfies the reader's expectation, i.e., a fine sense for the significant scene or action, a felicity of phrase that is not merely decoration, but becomes perception." Since 2001

StoryQuarterly ''StoryQuarterly'' is an American literary journal based at Rutgers University–Camden in Camden, New Jersey. It was founded in 1975 by Tom Bracken, F.R. Katz, Pamela Painter and Thalia Selz. Works originally published in ''StoryQuarterly'' ha ...

has awarded the annual "Robie Macauley Award for Fiction."

Nonfiction

He co-authored (with George Lanning) a textbook on writing, ''Technique in Fiction'' (1964, revised in 1989), and co-authored (with William Betcher) a book on marriage counseling, ''The Seven Basic Quarrels of Marriage'' (1990). He edited ''America and Its Discontents'' together with Larzer Ziff. Between 1942 and 1990 he contributed dozens of book reviews to ''

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 ...

'', ''

'', '' Furioso'', '' Vogue'', ''The

New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the '' New York Tribune'' acquired the '' New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and compet ...

'', '' The Partisan Review'', ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

'', ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of ...

'', '' Encounter'', ''

'', ''

The Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily Non-profit journalism, nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation am ...

'', ''

Dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American and British English spelling differences, American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literature, literary and theatrical form that depicts suc ...

'', the ''

Boston Review ''Boston Review'' is an American quarterly political and literary magazine. It publishes political, social, and historical analysis, literary and cultural criticism, book reviews, fiction, and poetry, both online and in print. Its signature form ...

'', and other publications. He also wrote a series of contemplative essays on writing, writers and literature which were published in '' Shenandoah'', ''The Irish University Review'', '' Transition'', ''The Texas Quarterly'', '' Ploughshares'', and ''

''.Macauley R. "Silence, Exile and Cunning." ''The Paris Review'', Spring 1990 (No. 114):200-217.

Bibliography

* ''A Secret History of Time to Come'' (1979) (Illustrated by Mark Hess)

References

External links

"A Last Conversation with Robie Macauley"
by Thomas E. Kennedy
''Technique in Fiction''
by Robie Macauley
Review of ''The Disguises of Love''
by Stanley Edgard Hyman

at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
"Stranger, Tread Light"
by Robie Macauley, ''The Kenyon Review'', Vol. 17, No. 2 (Spring, 1955), p. 280.
"Folie A Deux", short fiction by Robie MacauleyClive Baldwin's psychoanalysis of ''The Disguises of Love''
in Chapter 6 of ''Masculinity and the Other: Historical Perspectives'', pp. 138–154. {{DEFAULTSORT:Macauley, Robie 1919 births 1995 deaths 20th-century American novelists American book editors American literary critics American magazine editors American male novelists Bard College faculty Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty Kenyon College alumni Kenyon College faculty Olivet College alumni Writers from Grand Rapids, Michigan Recipients of the Legion of Merit United States Army soldiers University of Iowa alumni American male short story writers United States Army personnel of World War II 20th-century American short story writers 20th-century American male writers Novelists from Ohio Novelists from Michigan Novelists from New York (state) Novelists from Iowa 20th-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers Harvard Extension School faculty