Benderson, Bruce 1946-

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BENDERSON, Bruce 1946-

PERSONAL:

Born August 6, 1946. Education: Attended Binghamton University, NY, c. 1968.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY.

CAREER:

Writer, journalist, and translator. Literary executor of the deceased novelist Ursule Molinaro

AWARDS, HONORS:

Prix de Flore, Paris, France, 2004, for French version of The Romanian.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Darcy Ryser) CAPStan: Poems by CAPS Poetry Fellows, 1970-75, introduction by Muriel Rukeyser, Publishing Center for Cultural Resources (New York, NY), 1976.

Pretending to Say No: A Novella and Eleven Stories, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 1990.

User (novel), Dutton (New York, NY), 1994.

Toward the New Degeneracy: An Essay, Edgewise (New York, NY), 1997.

(Author of text) Bidgood, photographs by James Bidgood, Taschen (New York, NY), 1999.

(Translator) Caroline Gutmann, The Legacy of Dr. Lamaze: A Biography, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2001.

(Translator) Virginie Despentes, Baise-moi = Rape Me: A Novel, Grove Press (New York, NY), 2003.

(Editor) Carmen Firan, The Farce, translated by Doru Motz, Spuyten Duyvil (New York, NY), 2003.

(Translator) Nelly Arcan, Whore, Black Cat (New York, NY), 2005.

The Romanian: Story of an Obsession (memoir), Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin (New York, NY), 2006.

Also author of Sexe et solitude, Payot; Attitudes [France], 2006; and the film My Father Is Coming, 1991. Contributor to Vivre par terre, photographs by Philippe Castetbon, Tirésias (Paris, France), 2005; contributor to periodicals, including the New York Times, BetweenC&D, American Letters and Commentary, Men on Men, Flesh and the Word, and the Village Voice.

SIDELIGHTS:

In his first book of fiction, Pretending to Say No: A Novella and Eleven Stories, writer and journalist Bruce Benderson tells off-kilter, sometimes sexually charged stories such as "A Visit from Mom," in which a Jewish man has an encounter with a black ex-convict. In the title story, former First Lady Nancy Reagan encounters New York backstreet drug users as she searches for a needle, but not the kind they use. Commenting on this tale, a Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that the author "supplies some funny lines … obscenities aplenty, and a raunchy denouement."

Benderson's next effort is the novel User, which focuses on the underbelly of Times Square in New York City. Populated by transsexual hustlers, junkies, and street people, the story revolves around a male prostitute named Apollo who almost kills a bouncer. Hooked on dialaudid, Apollo soon finds himself being stalked by the bouncer's fifteen-year-old son and pursued by the police and others. Catherine Kord wrote in the Antioch Review that "the players are all fragile, dislodged in an instant from their places of temporary security." Writing in the Lambda Book Report, Jim Gladstone commented: "The fetid perfume of 42nd Street wafts from the prose of Bruce Benderson's User. "A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that the "supple and polyglot prose gives voice to a discordant chorus of characters."

In Toward the New Degeneracy: An Essay, Benderson "champions the relationship between artistic creativity and the fluid morality which he believes characterizes the underclasses," according to Jeffery Beam writing in the Lambda Book Report. Beam went on to note that the "essay should be read for what it can teach gay artists about the need to stretch themselves beyond the mainstream which threatens gay art."

Benderson's memoir, The Romanian: Story of an Obsession, tells of Benderson's attachment to a twenty-four-year-old street hustler in Romania, an attraction he develops while researching brothels in Budapest. The memoir follows Benderson's sexual relationship with Romulus, who despite his affair with Benderson continues to consider himself a heterosexual. Intersected with the story of Benderson and Romulus are stories about famous Romanian personages, such as King Carol II, who had a Jewish lover. Audrey Snowden, writing in the Library Journal, noted that, while he analyzes his relationship with Romulus, Benderson "weaves a startlingly beautiful tapestry." A Publishers Weekly contributor commented that "anyone … who's able to read a painfully honest account of an obsessive love affair without … [the] need to judge … will be rewarded." In a review in Booklist, Brendan Driscoll called The Romanian "uncommonly prescient and provocative."

In addition to fiction and essays, Benderson is also the author of the screenplay My Father's Coming. The film centers on the German Vicky, who is living on New York's Lower East Side with a colorful gay roommate who has a penchant for outlandish behavior. Vicky's father arrives for a visit from Bavaria, which sets off the comedy of errors in which Vicky's roommate poses as her husband while her father discovers her in bed with another woman. Writing in the New York Times, Stephen Holden noted the film's "resolutely wholesome attitude." Benderson is also a translator of French books.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Benderson, Bruce, The Romanian: Story of an Obsession, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin (New York, NY), 2006.

PERIODICALS

Antioch Review, winter, 1996, Catherine Kord, review of User, p. 109.

Booklist, July, 2001, William Beatty, review of The Legacy of Dr. Lamaze: A Biography, p. 1964; February 15, 2006, Brendan Driscoll, review of The Romanian, p. 23.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2006, review of The Romanian, p. 117.

Lambda Book Report, September-October, 1994, Jim Gladstone, review of User, p. 17; April, 1998, Jeffery Beam, review of Toward the New Degeneracy: An Essay, p. 32.

Library Journal, September 15, 2001, Kathy Arsenaul, review of The Legacy of Dr. Lamaze, p. 103; February 1, 2006, Audrey Snowden, review of The Romanian, p. 78.

New York Times, November 22, 1991, Stephen Holden, review of My Father Is Coming.

Portland Mercury, February 16-22, 2006, Evan James, "The Bruce Benderson Interview."

Publishers Weekly, March 2, 1990, Penny Kaganoff, review of Pretending to Say No: A Novella and Eleven Stories, p. 78; May 30, 1994, review of User, p. 35; July 9, 2001, review of The Legacy of Dr. Lamaze, p. 58; December 19, 2005, review of The Romanian, p. 56; January 9, 2006, Bettina Berch, "What a Difference a Prize Makes," interview with author, p. 41.

Village Voice, January 20, 2006, review of The Romanian.