Bialosky, Jill 1957–

views updated

Bialosky, Jill 1957–

PERSONAL:

Born April 13, 1957, in Cleveland, OH; children: one son. Education: Graduate of Ohio University; Johns Hopkins University, M.A.; University of Iowa, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. Office—W.W. Norton and Company, 500 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10110. Agent—The Wylie Agency, Inc., 250 W. 57th St., Ste. 2114, New York, NY 10107. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, editor, and poet. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY, vice president, fiction editor, and editorial director of poetry series.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Elliot Coleman Award in Poetry.

WRITINGS:

The End of Desire (poems), Knopf (New York, NY), 1997.

(Editor, with Helen Schulman) Wanting a Child (essays), Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 1998.

Subterranean (poems), Knopf (New York, NY), 2001.

House under Snow (novel), Harcourt (New York, NY), 2002.

The Life Room, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including American Poetry Review, New Yorker, Partisan Review, Redbook, Triquarterly, and Paris Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jill Bialosky is a writer, editor, and poet. Her first volume, The End of Desire, is a collection of poems divided into three parts. In the first part, titled "House," Bialosky chronicles the lives of four young women who lose their father before they reach adulthood. The children in the poems attempt to compensate for the absence of the paternal parent as shown in the first long poem, "Fathers in the Snow." The other sections are titled "Reckless Heart" and "Winter." Sue Russell wrote in the Women's Review of Books that "the arranged beauty of art and the raw spontaneity of human emotion is particularly apparent in the poems that focus on family of origin." A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented that Bialosky "demonstrates a clear and discerning eye, establishes fine rhythms, and fashions smart line breaks." Phoebe Pettingell wrote in the New Leader that "these brief, eloquent poems rise above mere complaint to sing like a melody in a plaintive mode. The music is sad, but the tune gives pleasure because in it we can identify our own sorrows shaped into notes that touch and wring the heart." Writing in the Nation, Carol Muske noted that The End of Desire is "remarkably grounded and all of a piece. It reads like a single long poem that unscrolls, trancelike, as if a hypnotized or dreaming narrator rewitnesses the past in the present, bringing each detail whole and intact out of time."

Bialosky coedited Wanting a Child with Helen Schulman. The collection of twenty-two essays by noted authors, called a "moving anthology" by New York Times Book Review writer Leslie Chess Feller, focuses on the need to parent and the barriers that slow or prevent the process. Karen Propp wrote in the Women's Review of Books that "the writers articulate their experiences across a wide and unusual range of family-building situations: miscarriages, Down's syndrome, lesbian parenting, single parenting, surrogate mothers, birth mothers, adoptive mothers, stepchild, sick child. Emotion runs high, prose runs fast and tight. Years of pain, loss, and hard-won joy are compressed into each relatively brief selection." Editor Schulman carried a baby to term after several miscarriages, and Bialosky, who suffered congenital uterine damage because her mother had been prescribed the hormone diethylstilbestrol (DES) in the 1950s, eventually adopted. A contributor to Publishers Weekly called Wanting a Child a "hauntingly written and heartfelt collection." Library Journal's Barbara Hoffert commented that the book "adds a truly human dimension to the discussion."

Bialosky's second collection of poetry is titled Subterranean. A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that the poems of Subterranean "alternate between long blank verse and skeins of short, dimeter tercets, [and] follow a tried-and-true formula: a parade of natural phenomena—weather, sun and moon, physical desire." Library Journal contributor Louis McKee hailed the book's integrity of tone and "varied and original aesthetic," adding that "these poems touch on fragile moments and dark corners."

Bialosky's debut novel, House under Snow, "bears many traces of a poet's imagery and concentration," according to a reviewer for Publishers Weekly. The story is set in suburban Cleveland in the 1960s and 1970s, where Lilly Crane loses her husband and then concentrates on attracting a new one, often leaving her children alone as she recklessly pursues one man after another. After a succession of boyfriends, she does marry again, disastrously. The story is narrated by Anna, the middle of her three daughters, who is about to be married to the wrong man for the wrong reasons. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called the story a "soap opera, but a pretty good one, with a feel for the era … and a nicely satisfying end." Another reviewer writing in Publishers Weekly commented that "the ultimate effect of the book is to evoke a powerful sense of life's infinite mysteries, flourishing amid its squalors and terrors."

Other reviewers also had praise for the author's debut novel. "Stunning" was Yvette W. Olson's description of House under Snow in a Library Journal review. Olson called the characters "original and clearly defined," praised the plotting and story, and described the writing as "poetic and lyrical." Booklist's Elsa Gaztambide wrote that the novel "aches with the sensitivity of a soulful girl who is discovering love, sexuality, and the pain of unsurpassable betrayal."

When asked by interviewer Robert Birnbaum about the autobiographical content in her work, Bialosky replied: "I always think literature is much more interesting than real life. If you were documenting the day to day—I mean what do we do on a daily basis? We have coffee. We meet our friends. We get dressed in the morning. I turn to books because I want to escape daily life."

In her second novel, The Life Room, Bialosky tells the story of Eleanor Cahn, a Columbia University professor of literature. Eleanor is obsessed with Leo Tolstoy's classic novel Anna Karenina as she identifies with Anna's own inner conflicts and lack of fulfillment. Despite having a husband and family that she loves, like Anna, Eleanor is unsettled and wants more. Her husband is a surgeon more obsessed with his work than his wife, and he does not understand her longings. On a trip to Paris to present a paper on Tolstoy, Eleanor finds herself thinking about a possible romantic encounter. "She and an assortment of academics end up in a hotel room [after the conference], drinking and lounging on the bed," wrote Amy Finnerty in the New York Times Book Review. "In a twist on Jane Austen, Bialosky presents Eleanor with a lively stag line of eligible adulterers, and we are kept guessing as to which she might choose."

The novel continues to follow Eleanor as she recalls past loves and has several flirtations and encounters with various men, most of whom are self-absorbed. Eleanor eventually faces the ultimate test of dedication to her family when an old flame arrives in New York. Donna Seaman, writing in Booklist, called The Life Room "remarkable for its insights into erotic compulsion and the unbearable awkwardness and pain of flawed … love." A contributor to the New Yorker wrote that the author "is adept at capturing the banality of desire."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 1998, Kathryn Carpenter, review of Wanting a Child, p. 1402; June 1, 2002, Elsa Gaztambide, review of House under Snow; July 1, 2007, Donna Seaman, review of The Life Room, p. 28.

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2002, review of House under Snow, p. 590; June 15, 2007, review of The Life Room.

Library Journal, June 1, 1998, Barbara Hoffert, review of Wanting a Child, p. 138; December, 2001, Louis McKee, review of Subterranean, p. 130; June 15, 2002, Yvette W. Olson, review of House under Snow, p. 92; May 15, 2007, Joy Humphrey, review of The Life Room, p. 77.

Nation, July 21, 1997, Carol Muske, review of The End of Desire, p. 36.

New Leader, February 24, 1997, Phoebe Pettingell, review of The End of Desire, p. 14.

New Yorker, September 3, 2007, review of The Life Room, p. 133.

New York Times Book Review, May 10, 1998, Leslie Chess Feller, review of Wanting a Child; August 25, 2002, Michael Porter, review of House under Snow; August 5, 2007, Amy Finnerty, "Anna and the Flag," review of The Life Room.

Publishers Weekly, January 27, 1997, review of The End of Desire, p. 94; February 23, 1998, review of Wanting a Child, p. 57; December 17, 2001, review of Subterranean, p. 85; May 20, 2002, review of House under Snow, p. 45; April 23, 2007, review of The Life Room, p. 26.

Women's Review of Books, September, 1998, Karen Propp, review of Wanting a Child, pp. 10-11; November, 1998, Sue Russell, review of The End of Desire, pp. 26-27.