MITCHARD, Jacquelyn 1953-

PERSONAL: Born December 10, 1953, in Chicago, IL; daughter of Robert G. and Mary M. Dvorak; married Dan Allegretti (a journalist), 1981 (died, 1993); married Christopher Brent, 1998; children: six. Education: Rockford College, B.A., 1973.

ADDRESSES: Home—Madison, WI. Agent—Jane Gelfman, Gelfman, Schneider Literary Agents Inc., 250 West 57th St., New York, NY 10107.

CAREER: Author and journalist. High school teacher of English, 1974-76; Pioneer Press, Chicago, IL, managing editor and reporter, 1976-79; Capital Times, Madison, WI, reporter, 1979-84; Milwaukee Journal, Milwaukee, WI, metro reporter and columnist, 1984-88; speechwriter for Donna Shalala (then Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, later U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services), 1989-90; author of column "The Rest of Us," nationally syndicated by Tribune Media Services; author of nonfiction, fiction, and screenplays.

AWARDS, HONORS: Maggie Award for public service magazine journalism, 1993 and 1994; Parenting Network Public Awareness Award, 1997; Milwaukee Press Club Headliner Award, 1997, for exceptional service to the community; Ragdale Foundation Fellow for three years; Anne Powers Award, Council of Wisconsin Writers, 1997, for book of fiction; Audie Award, 1998.

WRITINGS:

Mother Less Child: The Love Story of a Family (memoir), W. W. Norton (New York, NY), 1985.

Jane Addams: Pioneer in Social Reform and Activist for World Peace (nonfiction), Gareth Stevens Children's Books (Milwaukee, WI), 1991.

(With Barbara Behm) Jane Addams: Peace Activist (nonfiction), Gareth Stevens Children's Books (Milwaukee, WI), 1992.

The Deep End of the Ocean (novel), Viking (New York, NY), 1996.

The Rest of Us: Dispatches from the Mother Ship (nonfiction), Viking (New York, NY), 1997.

The Most Wanted (novel), Viking (New York, NY), 1998.

A Theory of Relativity (novel), HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2001.

Baby Bat's Lullaby (for children), illustrated by Julia Noonan, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2003.

Twelve Times Blessed (novel), HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2003.

Also author, with Amy Paulsen, of the screenplays The Serpent's Egg and Typhoid Mary. Author of the essay "Mother to Mother," anthologized in The Adoption Reader, Seal Press, 1995.

ADAPTATIONS: The Deep End of the Ocean was adapted for film—starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Treat Williams, and Whoopi Goldberg—and released by Columbia Pictures, 1999. A Theory of Relativity is in development for a motion picture. An unabridged version of The Deep End of the Ocean was adapted for audiocassette and CD, read by Frances Cassidy, Books on Tape, 1996; an unabridged version of The Most Wanted was adapted for audiocassette, read by Julia Delfino, Books on Tape, 1998; an unabridged version of A Theory of Relativity was adapted for audiocassette, read by Juliette Parker, Books on Tape, 2001; an abridged version of A Theory of Relativity was adapted for audiocassette and CD, read by Jacquelyn Mitchard, Books on Tape, 2001.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A novel about "an intentional-simplicity community that falls apart"; another novel, written from the point of view of Nathaniel Hawthorne's wife.

SIDELIGHTS: A former newspaper reporter and columnist, Jacquelyn Mitchard was heralded as a first-rate storyteller when she sold her first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, after writing a mere 100 pages for a two-book contract worth $500,000. The story is about a Midwestern family, the Cappadoras, that collapses in on itself after three-year-old Ben Cappadora is kidnapped from a hotel lobby in Chicago.

An earlier memoir, Mother Less Child: The Love Story of a Family, grew out of Mitchard's strong desire to have children, a nearly fatal tubal pregnancy, and her efforts to cope with her inability to conceive and overcome the emotional and psychological aspects of infertility. Reviewing the book in Publishers Weekly, Genevieve Stuttaford advised, "The casual reader may feel she covers the material too thoroughly, but those faced with a similar reality will empathize with the couple's plight. Mitchard writes frankly and well of a painful subject that haunts all too many."

In 1993, when her husband, journalist Dan Allegretti, died of cancer, Mitchard was determined to keep freelancing. She used her competence as a reporter and columnist to write "everything for anybody to pay the bills. I wrote warning labels: 'Don't point the paint-sprayer at your face while operating.' I put up with a lot of horrible rejection, but I wouldn't give in," she related to Jeff Giles in Newsweek. That persistence paid off in a big way. The success of The Deep End of the Ocean has provided financial security for Mitchard and her six children. The novel was the first selection for Oprah Winfrey's television book club and went on to become a number one New York Times bestseller. In 1999, a motion picture based on the book was released by Columbia Pictures and starred Michele Pfeiffer, Treat Williams, and Whoopi Goldberg.

The heart-squeezing anxiety of The Deep End of the Ocean is enhanced by intriguing characters, including Ben's brother Vincent and his parents Beth and Pat.

Donna Seaman wrote in Booklist, "[Mitchard] describes [Ben's mother] Beth's unraveling with clinical finesse, then proceeds to chronicle every aspect of the high-profile search for the missing child, the media feeding frenzy over this ideal prime-time tragedy, and the psychological toll such a cruel and mysterious disappearance exacts."

Nine years pass in the suspenseful plot, giving adequate time to explore the various family members' feelings, especially those of teenage Vincent Cappadora, who at age seven was put in charge of Ben in the crowded hotel lobby while his mother Beth checked them in. During these years, Beth has neglected Vincent, baby daughter Kerry, and husband Pat. Reviewer Sybil S. Steinberg, in Publishers Weekly, declared that Mitchard's plot is permeated with "disturbingly candid" revelations regarding familial relationships. Gail Collins, in the New York Times Book Review, described the book as "not so much a thriller as a gut wrencher." Mitchard delves into all the relationships, Jeff Giles insisted in Newsweek, "Don't bother predicting the end: there's a plot twist that'll spin you around no matter which way you're looking."

Commenting on Mitchard's work for Book Reporter, Judith Handschuh declared: "Mitchard has a rare gift—she understands the connections between spouses, siblings and friends and she is able to transmute that understanding into . . . exquisitely developed characters and heartbreaking stories." Noting that Mitchard wrote The Deep End of the Ocean with "an honesty and sensitivity that is not often found in contemporary novels," Handschuh found the same quality in the author's next novel, The Most Wanted. The coming-of-age story focuses on fourteen-year-old Arley, whose pen-pal relationship with Dillon, a twenty-three-year-old imprisoned thief, ultimately leads to their marriage and her pregnancy. The novel succeeds, Handschuh contended, "because Mitchard understands her characters so well and is able to portray their actions and feelings in a way that is both engaging and believable." Other critics were less appreciative, however. Holly Hildebrand of the Houston Chronicle found the book "a glorified romance," but admitted that Mitchard is "good at creating a Texas atmosphere" and allowed that "toward the end Mitchard builds her suspense well, and many of the characters, especially the minor ones, are appealing." The Christian Science Monitor's Kim Campbell was similarly critical of The Most Wanted.

"The novel is not particularly thought-provoking....[and] is hampered by too many details," Campbell wrote. "By the end, the author is trying too hard to tie up loose ends." In an assessment for the London Times, Christina Koning observed: "Mitchard is a gifted writer who is not afraid to take risks." Lauding her characters as "well-drawn" and "entirely believable" and declaring that her portrayal of small-town life in Texas "has a similar authenticity," Koning still noted "a tendency to sentimentalise people and situations, and a happy-ever-after sunniness of outlook which seems ill-suited to the grim situation portrayed."

Mitchard's next novel, A Theory of Relativity, is a tangled tale of familial relationships. At the center of the story is young Keefer, who is left an orphaned one-year-old when her parents, Georgia and Ray Nye, are killed in an automobile accident. Each side of the family contends for her custody—Georgia's brother, Gordon McKenna, on one side and Delia Cady, Ray's cousin, on the other. Wrangling over the child's custody carries on for years, complicated by the fact that Keefer's maternal uncle Gordon, like her mother, was adopted, and the law allows only blood relatives to file for an expedited adoption. Reviewing the novel for Book Reporter, Daryl Chen deemed it "a gripping story," but also pointed to "uncut prose, snarly legal scenes, and weepy flashbacks." A Theory of Relativity, he concluded, "finally finishes with a whimper after starting with a bang." In a similar vein, a contributor for Kirkus Reviews noted, "It takes much too long to get to the admittedly touching surprise end, narrated by nine-year-old Keefer."

In her latest book, Twelves Times Blessed, Mitchard explores the life of a middle-aged woman who, like Mitchard, was widowed young and married a younger man. In an interview for the Capital Times, Mitchard described the book as "funny and vulgar and kick-the-chair-out-from-under-me honest....It's about the true and deep-seated insecurities women feel when they're in their forties and certain choices narrow, and the anger engendered in that."

Mitchard told CA: "Writing is how I make my living, but I would never do anything for money I would not do for free. The privilege of being able to tell a story, which is one of the most powerful forms of expression in this or any time, in this or any culture, is a rare stroke of kind fate."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Atlanta Consitution, July 6, 2001, Teresa K. Weaver, author interview and review of A Theory of Relativity, p. B1.

Book, July, 2001, Kera Bolonik, review of A Theory ofRelativity, p. 42, and Beth Kephart, review of A Theory of Relativity, p. 72.

Booklist, March 15, 1985, p. 1019; April 1, 1996, Donna Seaman, review of The Deep End of the Ocean, p. 1324; October 15, 1997, Donna Seaman, review of The Rest of Us: Dispatches from the Mother Ship, p. 380; April 15, 1998, Donna Seaman, review of The Most Wanted, p. 1356; April 1, 2001, Donna Seaman, review of A Theory of Relativity, p. 1429.

Capital Times (Madison, WI), June 22, 2001, Heather Lee Schroeder, "Mitchard Blooms in Shangri-La," author interview.

Chatelaine, September, 2001, Bonnie Schiedel, "Blood Pressure," review of A Theory of Relativity, p. 20.

Choice, October 1991, p. 245.

Christian Science Monitor, September 9, 1996, Merle Rubin, review of The Deep End of the Ocean, p. 14; July 23, 1998, "Oprah Propels Some First Novelists to the Stars," p. B4, and Kim Campbell, "Oprah's First Author Finds Round Two Tough," review of The Most Wanted, p. B5.

Entertainment Weekly, March 21, 1997, Lisa Schwarzbaum, review of The Deep End of the Ocean, pp. 65-66.

Houston Chronicle, June 14, 1998, Holly Hildebrand, "Mitchard Falls Short with Trite Texas Teen," review of The Most Wanted, p. 17.

Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 1985, p. 81; March 15, 1996, p. 400; April 15, 2001, review of A Theory of Relativity, pp. 529-530.

Library Journal, March 15, 1985, p. 67; April 15, 1996, Jan Blodgett, review of The Deep End of the Ocean, p. 123; September 1, 1998, Theresa Connors, review of The Most Wanted, p. 237; May 1, 2001, Michele Leber, review of A Theory of Relativity, p. 127.

Newsweek, June 3, 1996, Jeff Giles, review of TheDeep End of the Ocean, pp. 72-74.

New York Times, June 21, 2001, Janet Maslin, "Who'll Win Her Little Heart? Duck Puppets or Barbie?," review of A Theory of Relativity, p. E7.

New York Times Book Review, August 18, 1996, Gail Collins, review of The Deep End of the Ocean, p. 22; August 30, 1998, Linda Barrett Osborne, review of The Most Wanted, p. 17.

People Weekly, July 15, 1996, Louisa Ermelino, review of The Deep End of the Ocean, p. 37; December, 1997, Paula Chin, review of The Rest of Us, pp. 45-46.

Publishers Weekly, February 1, 1985, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Mother Less Child: The Love Story of a Family, p. 353; April 1, 1996, Sybil S. Steinberg, review of The Deep End of the Ocean, p. 54; September 22, 1997, review of The Rest of Us, p. 57.

San Francisco Chronicle, May 17, 1998, Georgia Jones-Davis, "Desire in All Its Forms: Love Story Goes to the Maternal and Carnal Heart of Life," review of The Most Wanted, p. 3.

School Library Journal, February, 1999, Catherine Charvat, review of The Most Wanted, pp. 142-143.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 24, 2001, Gail Pennington, "Master of Emotion, Mitchard Fizzles in the End," review of A Theory of Relativity, p. F8.

Time, June 15, 1998, Elizabeth Gleick, review of TheMost Wanted, p. 81.

Times (London, England), January 23, 1999, Christina Koning, "Heart of Texas," review of The Most Wanted, p. 22.

Us Weekly, June 4, 2001, Nan Goldberg, review of ATheory of Relativity, p. 66.

ONLINE

Book Reporter,http://www.bookreporter.com/authors/ (March 15, 1999), Judith Handschuh, author interview and review of The Most Wanted;http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/ (November 1, 2001), review of The Deep End of the Ocean, and Daryl Chen, review of A Theory of Relativity.