Lieberman, Robert (Howard) 1941-

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LIEBERMAN, Robert (Howard) 1941-

PERSONAL:

Born February 4, 1941, in New York, NY; son of Oscar (an attorney) and Gertrude (Riegelhaupt) Lieberman; married Gunilla Anna Rosen (a dance teacher), April 10, 1965; children: Zorba B. O., Boris R. Z. Education: Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, B.S., 1962; Cornell University, M.S., 1965; graduate study at University of Stockholm, 1965-66. Politics: "Against all politicians regardless of race, creed, or color." Religion: "Against all religions regardless of race, creed, or color."

ADDRESSES:

Home—400 Nelson Rd., Ithaca, NY 14850. Office—Cornell University, Rockefeller Hall, room B-14, Ithaca, NY 14853. Agent—Liza Dawson Associates, 240 West Thirty-fifth Street, Suite 500, New York, NY 10010. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, filmmaker. Technical College of Skelleftea, Skelleftea, Sweden, professor of mathematics, 1965-66; Bethune-Cookman College, Daytona Beach, FL, professor of mathematics, 1966-67; Hong Kong International School, Hong Kong, chairman of department of mathematics, 1967; Hampton Institute, Hampton, VA, professor of physical science, 1968; Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY, professor of physics, 1968-69, professor of mathematics, 1969-72; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, professor of engineering, 1975-79, director of Physics Program for the Learning and Teaching Center.

MEMBER:

American Film Institute, Eta Kappa Nu.

AWARDS, HONORS:

G. K. Hall Distinguished Fiction Series, 1980; CINE Golden Eagle Award, 1984, for Faces in a Famine (documentary film); Fulbright Fellowship, Bratislava.

WRITINGS:

Paradise Rezoned (novel), Berkley (New York, NY), 1974.

Goodbersville Breakdown, Gamma Books (Ithaca, NY), 1979.

Baby (novel), Crown (New York, NY), 1981.

(And director and producer) Faces in a Famine (screenplay), Public Broadcasting System, 1984.

Perfect People, Dell (New York, NY), 1986.

The Last Boy (novel), Sourcebooks Landmark (New York, NY), 2002.

(And director and producer) Green Lights (screenplay), Ithaca Movies Inc., 2002.

Also author of several unpublished novels. Contributor of articles and short stories to magazines in both the United States and Sweden.

ADAPTATIONS:

Baby was optioned for a feature film by Abandon Films; The Last Boy was optioned for a feature film by Michael Gruskoff at Industry Entertainment.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

A novel; a screenplay adaptation of The Last Boy.

SIDELIGHTS:

A long-time professor of physics, mathematics, and engineering at Cornell University, Robert H. Lieberman has also done research in neurophysiology. He combines many of these academic interests, as well as environmental concerns, in his fiction writing. He had written seven novels and one hundred short stories before the publication of his novel Paradise Rezoned. "Actually, I've been writing for thirty years and never realized it," he told Richard G. Case of the Syracuse Herald-American. "I don't know. I guess I was a closet writer. I'd do something and then put it away. I've got no English background. When I started I was illiterate; now I'm semiliterate." Lieberman also revealed to Case that the "real reason I started writing… is that I couldn't find any good books in the library. Now I think I compare favorably with the classics." On a more serious note, Lieberman says: "I want to be read because I think I have something to say. Money is secondary. If that was my interest I would have stayed in engineering with all of my friends."

Paradise Rezoned, which the author describes as a "highly personal biography," tells the story of Arnold Markowitz, who with his Swedish wife and two sons lives on scenic Mount Markowitz in upstate New York. When a developer plans to build a shopping mall at the base of the mountain, Arnold plunges into the battle to save his home. Martin Levin of the New York Times Book Review called the novel a "tragi-comedy of manners" and wrote that the author has "a sharp eye for the incongruous and the humor that can accompany desperate happenings."

Baby, Lieberman's third published novel, is the unusual story of what happens when an elderly, frail, spinster librarian gives virgin birth to a golden-haired child who is endowed with an unusually beautiful voice. In the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Don G. Campbell pointed out that "Lieberman… has tackled a plot line of heroic proportions. Greed, obsession and cultism would be challenge enough for most writers, but to throw in parthenogenesis [reproduction by self-fertilization] on top of it is roller-skating on a high wire."

Lieberman once commented that although he does utilize much of his scientific background in writing his novels, he has "stayed away from what may be termed 'science fiction.' My major concern has always been with people, their emotions, their lives, and perhaps this is what is at the core of my books…. I speak innumerable languages (Swedish, German, a little French, some dirty words in Finnish and Cantonese); am aging rapidly; and am getting progressively more cynical and 'perverse'—a perfect background for a writer."

Such qualities also add to the abilities of a filmmaker, apparently, for Lieberman has written, directed, and produced numerous documentaries shown on PBS, including the award-winning Faces in a Famine. In 2002 Lieberman branched out to feature film with his Green Lights, a "tale about a hapless movie location scout who goes to Ithaca, NY, and is mistaken for a big-time Hollywood producer," as Karen W. Arenson described the movie in the New York Times. Scott Foundas, reviewing the film in Daily Variety, noted that Lieberman "achieves spectacularly funny results by substituting warmth, wonder and merriment for the oppressive cynicism inherent in the Hollywood insider comedy." Lieberman used Cornell students, faculty, and staff members, in addition to some professional actors, in this feature film.

Also in 2002, Lieberman published his fifth novel, The Last Boy, an ecothriller about a missing five-year-old boy, Danny Driscoll, and his mother Molly's attempts to find him. Working with detective Lou Tripoli, she follows every lead, without success. In the weeks and months of working together, Molly and Lou begin a relationship. After giving up hope of ever finding her boy, Molly is amazed with Danny's miraculous return; however, he is profoundly changed. He wears his hair long, eats no meat, and begins to hear messages that enable him to predict the weather. Soon Danny becomes a spiritual leader. When Molly demands that the police find whoever is responsible for this change, they do, but with near disastrous results. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly found this novel to be a "taut police procedural" for the first half, but with Danny's return it "lurches toward the eco-weird." Still, the same reviewer felt that Lieberman's narrative "remains interesting and readable due to the author's skill with language and his ability to engineer suspense and slow-release tension." Regina Schroeder, writing in Booklist, had concerns about the "unsubtle message" but found the book "reasonably engaging." A critic for Kirkus Reviews observed that Lieberman "hits all the right environmental notes here, and there's an ample amount of mystery, but his characters are never developed much beyond their reactions to Daniel."