Jonathan Samuel Carroll (born January 26, 1949) is an American author of magic realist/slipstream/mainstream fiction.
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Life and work
Carroll was born in New York City to Sidney Carroll, a film writer whose credits included The Hustler, and June (née Sillman), an actress and lyricist who appeared in numerous Broadway shows and two films. He is the half brother of composer Steve Reich and nephew of Broadway producer Leonard Sillman. His parents were Jewish but Carroll was raised in the Christian Science religion. A self-described "troubled teenager," he finished primary education at the Loomis School in Connecticut and graduated with honors from Rutgers University in 1971, marrying artist Beverly Schreiner in the same year. He relocated to Vienna, Austria a few years later and began teaching at the American International School, and has made his home in Austria ever since. His first novel, The Land of Laughs (1980), is indicative of his general style and subject matter. Told in a very realistic first-person, the novel portrays a young schoolteacher searching for meaning through researching the life of a favorite children's book author of his youth. Warmly, and strange to his expectations, greeted by the author's grown-up daughter, everything seems fine until the dog begins talking to him, as the line between the fantasy world created by his research subject and the reality of the schoolteacher's life, while the reader begins to wonder just how much trust can be placed in this narrator. Subsequent novels would expand on these themes, but often contain unreliable narrators in a world where magic is viewed as natural. (One commentator claimed that Carroll would have been considered a magic realist had he been born in South America and had a Spanish surname.) His short story, "Friend's Best Man", won a World Fantasy Award. Carroll's work has frequently been short-listed for that award, the Hugo, and the British Fantasy Award, which he won for the novel Outside the Dog Museum. His collection of short-stories, The Panic Hand, won the Bram Stoker Award in 1995 for Best Collection. Both The Land of Laughs and From The Teeth of Angels won the French "Prix Imaginaire". His short story "Home on the Rain" was chosen as one of the best stories of the year by the Pushcart Prize committee.
Bibliography
- The Land of Laughs (1980)
- Voice of Our Shadow (1983)
- The Answered Prayers Sextet
- Bones of the Moon (1987) [slightly revised US edition (1988)]
- Sleeping in Flame (1988)
- A Child Across the Sky (1989) [A Washington Post Book of the Year]
- Outside the Dog Museum (1991)
- After Silence (1992)
- From the Teeth of Angels (1993) [A New York Times Notable Book]
- Die Panische Hand (1989) [Short story collection; German language edition]
- Black Cocktail (1990) [novella]
- The Panic Hand (1995) [Short story collection; expansion of the 1989 German language edition; the 1996 US edition adds the novella Black Cocktail]
- The Crane's View Trilogy
- Kissing The Beehive (1997)
- The Marriage of Sticks (2000)
- The Wooden Sea (2001) [A New York Times Notable Book]
- The Heidelberg Cylinder (2000) [novella; 1000 copy limited edition, signed by Jonathan Carroll and cover artist Dave McKean.]
- White Apples (2002)
- Glass Soup (2005)
- Oko Dnia (Eye Of The Day) (2006) [Polish language edition]
- "The Ghost in Love" (2008)
Interviews
- Interview with Jonathan Carroll on wotmania.com
- A conversation with Jonathan Carroll on SF Site
- The Complete Rain Taxi Interview with Jonathan Carroll
- Jonathan Carroll interview on the Critique Magazine website
External links
- Official Jonathan Carroll Website and daily blog
- White Apples - the official website for his novel
- Glass Soup - the official website for his novel, art design by Ryder Carroll--- www.rydercarroll.com
- Jonathan Carroll at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Jonathan Carroll at Bold Type Author essay titled "New Year's Resolutions"; Book excerpt from "Kissing the Beehive."
