Leonard Michaels

Leonard Michaels (January 2, 1933 – May 10, 2003) was an American writer of short stories, novels, and essays, and a Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.

Early life and education

Michaels was born in New York City to Jewish parents; his father was born in Poland. He attended New York University and was awarded a BA degree, and then went on to earn an MA and PhD in English literature from the University of Michigan. After receiving his doctorate, Leonard Michaels moved to Berkeley, California, where he was to spend most of his adult life and become Professor of English at the University of California.<ref name="universityofcalifornia1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Literary career

In 1969, Michael's first book was published – Going Places, a collection of short stories.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

His follow-up book, another collection of short stories, was I Would Have Saved Them If I Could, published in 1975. It was considered by some as strong as Michaels' debut.<ref name="universityofcalifornia1"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Michaels' first novel, released in 1981, was The Men's Club. It is story-like comedy that simultaneously attacks and celebrates the absurdities of men as they gather in a kind of urban support group. In 1986, the novel was made into a film, directed by Peter Medak, with the screenplay by Michaels, and starring Roy Scheider, Harvey Keitel, Stockard Channing, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Frank Langella.

Michaels' second and last novel was published in 1992. Titled Sylvia, it is a fictionalized memoir of his first wife, Sylvia Bloch, who died by suicide. Sylvia is described in the book as "abnormally bright" but prone to violent rages, "like a madwoman imitating a college student."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Sylvia incorporates passages from Michaels' diary, a selection of which was published under the title Time Out of Mind in 1999.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Michaels became a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine in the 1990s.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Other information

Michaels was a Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.

He took part in anti-Vietnam war protests in the San Francisco Bay area,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> although he also accepted a description of himself as an 'unpolitical man'.

He is interred at Oakmont Memorial Park, in Lafayette, California.

Michaels had a daughter with his third wife, the poet Brenda Hillman.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His son Jesse Michaels (from his second marriage) was the vocalist and primary lyricist in the seminal underground punk rock band Operation Ivy in the late 1980s

Selected publications

Short story collections

• Going Places (1969, Template:ISBN)
• I Would Have Saved Them If I Could (1975, Template:ISBN)
• Shuffle (1990, Template:ISBN)
• A Girl With a Monkey: New and Selected Stories (2000, Template:ISBN)
• The Collected Stories (2007, Template:ISBN)
• The Nachman Stories (2017, Template:ISBN)

Novels

• The Men's Club (1981, Template:ISBN) (filmed in 1986)
• Sylvia (1992, Template:ISBN)

Essays

• To Feel These Things (2000, Template:ISBN)
• The Essays of Leonard Michaels 2009, Template:ISBN

Diary

• Time Out of Mind (1999, Template:ISBN)

Others

• A Cat (1995, Template:ISBN)

External links

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• The Improbable Moralist Both an appreciation of his art and review of The Collected Stories by Phillip Lopate; published in The Nation on-line June 21, 2007 (July 9, 2007, issue)
• Leonard Michaels – let us not forget him review of The Collected Stories, by Paul Wilner. This piece appeared July 1, 2007, at SF Gate.com. The review also extends into a backlog of reflection about Michaels' Sylvia and an essay on Michaels' called Difficult Friends in Wendy Lesser's Room For Doubt.
• To Live in a Culture: Leonard Michaels' Sylvia and The Collected Stories piece by Nora Griffin at The Brooklyn Rail
• Interview: Wyatt Mason on Leonard Michaels at Harper's
• Obituary of the University of California
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|CitationClass=web }} – A reading of Michaels' story "Cryptology".

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