Joseph McElroy
Joseph Prince McElroy[1] (born August 21, 1930) is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist.[2] He is noted for his long postmodern novels such as Women and Men.
Joseph McElroy
August 21, 1930
New York City, U.S.
Novelist, professor
Personal background[edit]
McElroy was born on August 21, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Brooklyn Heights. He graduated from Poly Prep Country Day School in 1947 and was given an Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award in 2007 from the school's Board of Governors.[3] He graduated from Williams College in 1951. The following year, McElroy earned a master's degree from Columbia University. He served in the Coast Guard from 1952 to 1954, and then returned to Columbia to complete his Ph.D. in 1961.[4]
In 1961, McElroy married Joan Leftwich, of London, in London. She is the daughter of Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews; her father, Joseph Leftwich, was a translator and anthologizer of Yiddish poetry.[5] The McElroys' only child, Hanna, was born in 1967. McElroy assisted with the birth.[4]
Career[edit]
McElroy taught English and Creative Writing at the University of New Hampshire from 1956 to 1962[4] and at Queens College, City University of New York from 1964 to 1995, when he retired. McElroy's first novel, A Smuggler's Bible, was published in 1966. McElroy said A Smuggler's Bible "is like everybody's first novel, trying to put too much between covers. ...[I]t's a young book, and young people still seem to like it."[6]
McElroy's writing is often grouped with that of William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon, due to the encyclopedic quality of his novels, especially Women and Men (1987). His short fiction was first published in literary journals. Echoes of McElroy's work can be found in that of Don DeLillo and David Foster Wallace. McElroy's work often reflects a preoccupation with how science functions in American society;[7] Exponential, a collection of essays published in Italy in 2003, collects science and technology journalism written primarily in the 1970s and 1980s for the New York Review of Books.[8]
In 1980, McElroy and his class at Queens College interviewed Norman Mailer.[9][10] He interviewed Harry Mathews in 2002 for the Village Voice.[11] McElroy wrote about his fiction and influences in his essay "Neural Neighborhoods".[12]