Hyde, Elisabeth 1953-

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HYDE, Elisabeth 1953-

PERSONAL: Born July 23, 1953, in Concord, NH; daughter of John L. (a real estate appraiser and investment consultant) and Elizabeth (Marden) Hyde; married Pierre J. Schlag (a professor of law), October 12, 1984; children: Nicolai John. Education: University of Vermont, B.A. (cum laude), 1976; Hastings College of the Law, J.D., 1979.

ADDRESSES: Home—CO. Agent—Elizabeth Grossman, Literistic Ltd., 264 5th Ave., New York, NY 10001.

CAREER: Member of California State Bar. U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, Washington, DC, trial attorney, 1979–82; writer, 1982–. Has taught at elementary and college level.

MEMBER: Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: College Fiction Award from Mademoiselle, 1976, for short story "Pushing Eighty."

WRITINGS:

Her Native Colors (novel), Delacorte (New York, NY), 1986.

Monoosook Valley (novel), Delacorte (New York, NY), 1989.

Crazy as Chocolate, MacAdam/Cage (San Francisco, CA), 2002.

The Abortionist's Daughter (novel), Knopf (New York, NY), 2006.

Work has appeared in national magazines.

SIDELIGHTS: Elisabeth Hyde's first book, Her Native Colors, was described by Elaine Kendall in the Los Angeles Times as "a model post-feminist novel." It concerns the reunion of two women who grew up together in a small town in Vermont. One has moved to California, become a single parent, and joined a prestigious law firm while the other has remained in rural New England where, working as a high school teacher, she is about to be married for the first time. According to Kendall, Her Native Colors "explores the idea of 'having it all'" as opposed to "'having only some of it'" with each of the central characters facing the "difficulties of being a 30-year-old woman" during the 1980s, where all things seem attainable.

In her second novel, Monoosook Valley, Hyde writes about a family living in another small town, this time in New Hampshire during the early 1970s. Released more than a decade later, Hyde's third novel, Crazy as Chocolate, was published to highly positive reviews. The book, described by a Kirkus Reviews critic as a "surprisingly upbeat tale of a ruinously dysfunctional family," centers on Izzy, whose mother committed suicide on her forty-first birthday. About to turn forty-one herself, Izzy revisits the past as her sister Ellie and their father come to visit for the anniversary. Rebecca Stuhr in Library Journal hailed the novel as an "engrossing read" and a reviewer for Publishers Weekly praised its "originality and sparkle."