Frederick Barthelme Explained

Fredrick Barthelme
Birth Date:	10 October 1943
Birth Place:	Houston, Texas, U.S.
Alma Mater:	Johns Hopkins University
Occupation:	Novelist

Fredrick Barthelme (born October 10, 1943) is an American novelist and short story writer of minimalist fiction. He is the director of the Center For Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi and editor of New World Writing^[1] (formerly Blip Magazine)^[2]

Early life

Barthelme was born in Houston, Texas.^[2]

Life and work

Barthelme was a founding member of the avant-garde experimental rock band the Red Krayola, and left the band to pursue writing and conceptual art in New York.^{[3] [4]}

His writing focuses on the landscape of the New South. Along with being a minimalist, his work has also been described as "dirty realism" and "Kmart realism".^[5] He published his first short story in The New Yorker.^[6]

Barthelme was the editor of Mississippi Review for three years.^[7] He is the director of the Center For Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi and editor of New World Writing^[1] (formerly Blip Magazine).^[2]

Personal life

His brothers Donald Barthelme and Steven Barthelme are also writers.

Publications

Novels

• War and War, 1971.
• Second Marriage New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984.
• Tracer New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.
• Two Against One New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988.
• Natural Selection New York: Viking, 1989.
• The Brothers New York: Viking, 1993.
• Painted Desert New York: Viking, 1995.
• Bob the Gambler Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1997.
• Elroy Nights Cambridge: Counterpoint, 2003.
• Waveland New York: Doubleday, 2009.
• There Must Be Some Mistake New York: Little Brown, 2014.

Story collections

• Rangoon 1970.
• Moon Deluxe Simon & Schuster, 1983.
• Chroma Simon & Schuster, 1987.
• The Law of Averages: New & Selected Stories Counterpoint, 2000.
• "trip" (text) photographs by Susan Lipper Powerhouse Books, 1998.

Memoirs

• (With Steven Barthelme) Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

Screenplays

• Second Marriage 1985.
• Tracer 1986.

Awards

• 1976–77 Eliot Coleman Award for prose from Johns Hopkins University for his short story, "Storyteller"
• 1979, 1980 National Endowment for the Arts grant
• 2004 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction nomination for Elroy Nights
• 2010 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters fiction award for Waveland

Further reading

• Brinkmeyer, Robert H. "Suburban Culture, Imaginative Wonder: The Fiction of Frederick Barthelme." Studies in the Literary Imagination 27 (Fall 1994): 105–1.
• Hughes, John C. The Novels and Short Stories of Frederick Barthelme: A Literary Critical Analysis. Lewiston: Mellen: 2005.
• Peters, Timothy. "The Eighties Pastoral: Frederick Barthelme's Moon Deluxe Ten Years On." Studies in Short Fiction 31.2 (Spring 1994): 175–95.

External links

• • "Interview with Frederick Barthelme" (2009)
• "More on Frederick Barthelme", The New York Times
• ""The Web is a gun" An e-mail exchange", The Atlantic
• "After Storms Literal and Metaphoric, Rebuilding", NPR

Notes and References

1. Web site: Our Name Change. December 13, 2012. newworldwriting.net.
2. Web site: Fredrick Barthelme. November 11, 2008. The Mississippi Writers Page. The University of Mississippi, English Department. May 24, 2010.
3. Mayo Thompson Interview Part 1 . richieunterberger.com.
4. Web site: The Red Krayola: The Parable of Arable Land / God Bless The Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It . 2023-05-01 . Pitchfork . en.
5. Web site: Southernscribe.com. www.southernscribe.com.
6. Archived copy . . 2020-02-18 . 2012-10-18 . https://web.archive.org/web/20121018035409/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/frederick_barthelme/search?contributorName=frederick%20barthelme . dead .
7. Web site: Barthelme's Departure Leaves the 'Mississippi Review' in Limbo - PageView - the Chronicle of Higher Education . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110611105805/http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Barthelmes-Departure-Leave/25610/ . 2011-06-11 . 2010-07-21.