WEIR, John 1959-
(John P. Weir, Jr.)

PERSONAL:

Born 1959. Education: Columbia University, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—NY. Office—Department of English, Queens College, City University of New York, 65-30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing, NY 11367. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

City University of New York, Queens College, Flushing, NY, assistant professor of English, associate department chair.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Lambda Literary Award for Best First Novel by a Gay Man, for The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket.

WRITINGS:

The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket (novel), Harper & Row (New York, NY), 1989.

What I Did Wrong (novel), Viking (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to anthologies, including Columbia Reader in Lesbian & Gay Studies: Lesbians & Gay Men in American Society, Politics and the Media, Gay Men at the Millennium, Pomosexuals: Challenging Assumptions about Gender and Sexuality, Anti-Gay: Homosexuality and Its Discontents, Taking Liberties: Gay Male Essays on Politics, Culture, and Sex, and Beyond Queer. Also contributor to periodicals, including Details, Rolling Stone, Spin, New York, Advocate, Village Voice, and the New York Times.

SIDELIGHTS:

John Weir is an educator and writer whose work focuses heavily on homosexual themes. His first novel, The Irreversible Decline of EddieSocket, won the Lambda Literary Award for Best First Novel by a Gay Man, and tells the story of a man's experience with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Weir's follow up, What I Did Wrong, concerns a gay English professor who finds himself fixating on his much younger, straight student. A Publishers Weekly critic felt that the volume "sparkles episodically but lacks the narrative drive of its celebrated predecessor," while a contributor to Kirkus Reviews remarked: "Familiar themes for a gay novel, but Weir conveys them inventively and effectively." Washington Post Book World reviewer Dennis Drabelle concluded that "Weir wields a controlled artistry. He's so confident now that, in [narrator] Tom's voice, he can encapsulate gay male literature in a single paragraph."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2006, review of What I Did Wrong, p. 110.

Lambda Book Report, December, 1999, review of The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket, p. 30.

Library Journal, April 15, 2006, Joseph M. Eagan, review of What I Did Wrong, p. 69.

National Gay & Lesbian Newsmagazine, April 25, 2006, David Bahr, review of What I Did Wrong, p. 64.

Publishers Weekly, January 30, 2006, review of What I Did Wrong, p. 40.

Washington Post Book World, May 28, 2006, Dennis Drabelle, review of What I Did Wrong, p. 6.

ONLINE

Queens College, City University of New York Web site,http://qcpages.qc.edu/ (October 11, 2006), faculty profile of John Weir.*