Pitlor, Heidi 1970-

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Pitlor, Heidi 1970-

PERSONAL:

Born 1970, in Concord, MA. Education: McGill University, B.A. (political science), 1992; Emerson College, M.F.A. (creative writing), 1997.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson, & Lerner, 27 W. 20th St., New York, NY 10011.

CAREER:

Writer. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA, for ten years, became senior editor.

WRITINGS:

The Birthdays (novel), W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to Ploughshares.

SIDELIGHTS:

Heidi Pitlor was born and raised in Concord, Massachusetts. She returned to her birth state to complete a master's degree program after earning her baccalaureate degree in Montreal, Canada. Upon her return to the United States, Pitlor began working with Houghton Mifflin Company and attained the position of senior editor before resigning after ten years with the publisher. Although Pitlor had contributed to periodicals, including Ploughshares, she did not publish her first novel until 2006.

The Birthdays tells the story of a family coming together for the seventy-fifth birthday of the patriarch, Joe Miller. His children are all on the verge of having children of their own but are all suffering from different issues resulting from this change in their circumstances. The eldest son, recently paralyzed, is questioning his masculinity after his wife becomes pregnant following a visit to a sperm bank. The younger son is successful but suffers from "middle-child syndrome" and has a wife with no interest in sex. The youngest, seen as the most irresponsible, is pregnant but has no idea who the father is.

Reviews were mostly positive for Pitlor's debut novel. Joanne Wilkinson, writing in Booklist, stated that Pitlor "has ably homed in on trenchant modern issues revolving around fertility, marriage, and aging." Donna Bettencourt agreed in a Library Journal review, noting that the author "has secured a place in literary fiction with this engrossing portrayal of ordinary people coping with life's calamities." In a Curled Up with a Good Book review, Luan Gaines wrote that the characters were all "familiar, although none are particularly appealing." Fred Leebron commented in a Ploughshares review that The Birthdays "isn't just a terrific family novel; it's a terrific novel through and through."