Stanton, Robert J. 1942- (Bob Stanton, U.S. Five)

PERSONAL:

Born July 7, 1942, in New York, NY; son of Robert J., Sr. (a postal worker) and Mary (a homemaker) Stanton; married Felicia Giancola (a watercolor painter), November 15, 1959; children: Robert III, Sharon. Ethnicity: "English/Irish/Dutch." Education: Hofstra University, B.A., 1970; University of Massachusetts at Amherst, M.A., 1972; further graduate studies, 1974-77 and 1993-98. Politics: Democrat. Religion: "Agnostic." Hobbies and other interests: Reading, walking, stargazing, bike riding, swimming, bird watching.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Jacksonville Beach, FL. Office—Department of English, Jacksonville University, University Blvd., Jacksonville, FL 32211; fax: 904-256-7189. Agent—Lettie Lee, Ann Elmo Agency, 60 E. 42nd St., New York, NY 10165.

CAREER:

Flagler College, St. Augustine, FL, instructor in English, 1972-74; University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, lecturer in rhetoric, 1979-81; Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, FL, associate professor of English, 1987-2006; freelance writer and poet, 2006—.

MEMBER:

Paradoxist Literary Movement Society (honorary member), Mark Twain Society (honorary member), Florida Association of Departments of English (president, 1993).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Teacher of the Year Award, Southside Skills Center, 1987.

WRITINGS:

A Bibliography of Modern British Novelists, two volumes, Whitston (Troy, NY), 1978.

Gore Vidal: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography, G.K. Hall (Boston, MA), 1978.

Truman Capote: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography, G.K. Hall (Boston, MA), 1980.

(Editor, with Gore Vidal, and author of introduction) Views from a Window: Conversations with Gore Vidal, Lyle Stuart (Secaucus, NJ), 1980.

(Under name Bob Stanton) The Devil's Rood: A Group Novel about America's First Serial Killer, Creative Arts Book (Berkeley, CA), 1999.

(Under name Bob Stanton) Collected Word Paintings: Wordstroke Impressions and Portraits, Surreal Brainscapes, Abstract Moods, and Mono-dramatic Expressions, Mellen Poetry Press (Lewiston, NY), 2000.

(Under name Bob Stanton; with Kathryn Lively) Dangerous Words (novel), Echelon Press (Laurel, MD), 2003.

(Under name Bob Stanton) The Sayonara Heart (novel), Xlibris (Philadelphia, PA), 2008.

Some writings appear under the sobriquet U.S. Five.

Stanton's work on conversations with Gore Vidal has been translated into Spanish and French.

SIDELIGHTS:

Robert J. Stanton once told CA: "My primary motivation for writing is to examine myself and others on the edge of things, events, and time. Therefore, my scholarly work has been on British and American novelists and poets, including Gore Vidal and Truman Capote. My poems are about madness, death, intense love; my novels are about serial killers, death, and insanity.

"My writing process is always concerned with discovery. I enjoy becoming one with the minds of madmen and other twentieth-century rejects. My poems explore the modern art forms of post-impressionism, surrealism, abstract mood paintings, and expressionism. (Most of my poems involve the existence and exploration of paradoxes.)

"In The Devil's Rood: A Group Novel about America's First Serial Killer, I led four of my creative writing students in creating a group novel, mainly written in dramatic monologue form, a form I have used extensively to create my most recent poetry. Dramatic monologue is a wonderful vehicle to reveal the character and personality of the poem's narrator."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Commonweal, December 4, 1981, Saul Maloff, review of Views from a Window: Conversations with Gore Vidal, p. 696.

First Coast Entertainer, December 16, 2000, Carol Elliott, review of Collected Word Paintings: Wordstroke Impressions and Portraits, Surreal Brainscapes, Abstract Moods, and Mono-dramatic Expressions.

Forbes, March 1, 1982, review of Views from a Window, p. 27.

Miami Herald, April 30, 2000, review of The Devil's Rood: A Group Novel about America's First Serial Killer.

Nation, March 21, 1981, J.D. O'Hara, review of Views from a Window, p. 343.

New York Times Book Review, December 21, 1980, Susan Jacoby, review of Views from a Window, p. 12.

Publishers Weekly, October 31, 1980, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Views from a Window, p. 81.