Hortense Calisher

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Calisher, Hortense (1911–), born in New York City, graduated from Barnard, and is known for her stories that subtly interpret character, collected in In the Absence of Angels (1951), Tale for the Mirror (1962), and Extreme Magic (1964). False Entry (1961) is a novel about a character known only by his pseudonym Pierre Goodman and his involvement in an Alabama trial, testifying against racists in the murder of a black. Textures of Life (1963) is a novel about relationships between parents and adult children and their respective marriages. Journal from Ellipsia (1965) is comic science fiction, and The Railway Police and The Last Trolly Ride (1966) are two novellas. Other novels include Queenie (1971), Eagle Eye (1973), and On Keeping Women (1977), all depicting modern New Yorkers in family relationships, themes also in The Bobby‐Soxer (1986), Age (1987), and Sunday Jews (2002),as well as stories in Saratoga, Hot (1985). Herself (1972) and Kissing Cousins (1988) are memoirs.

Hortense Calisher , 1911–2009, American author, b. New York City, grad. Barnard College, 1932. Her novels are difficult to categorize, blending deft character analysis with complex story lines. Written in careful, dense, elliptial, yet constantly fresh prose, they have been compared to works by Dickens and James. She frequently wrote about families and the failures of love and communication that wind through their generations. Among her novels are False Entry (1961), The New Yorkers (1969), Queenie (1971), Mysteries of Motion (1982), In the Palace of the Movie King (1993), and Sunday Jews (2002). In all, Calisher wrote more than 20 books. Her collected short stories appeared in 1975 (another story collection followed a decade later), and her collected novellas were published in 1997. She taught at several colleges and universities.

Bibliography: See her autobiographical Herself (1972), Kissing Cousins (1988), and Tattoo for a Slave (2004); K. Snodgrass, The Fiction of Hortense Calisher (1993).