Jaffe, Michael Grant

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Jaffe, Michael Grant

PERSONAL: Male.

ADDRESSES: Home—Cleveland, OH. Agent—W.W. Norton and Company, 500 5th Ave., New York, NY 10110.

CAREER: Writer. Formerly worked as sports journalist, Sports Illustrated.

WRITINGS:

Dance Real Slow (novel), Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 1996.

Skateaway (novel), Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 1999.

Whirlwind (novel), Norton (New York, NY), 2004.

ADAPTATIONS: Dance Real Slow was adapted as film A Cool, Dry Place, featuring actor Vince Vaughn.

SIDELIGHTS: A former sports writer, Michael Grant Jaffe turned his attention to fiction with his first novel, Dance Real Slow. The novel traces the experiences of Gordon Nash, a young attorney living in Kansas and trying to raise his four-year-old son Calvin on his own after his wife leaves him. Gordon's days are filled with small-time cases and divorces, and his nights with coaching the local high-school basketball team. His quiet life and a new relationship are threatened when his wife suddenly wants to return to him. Joanne Wilkinson, writing for Booklist, called the book "gracefully written," and remarked that the "winning characterization of four-year-old Calvin … is right on the mark." In a review for the Financial Post, Stephen Smith commented that "it's an impressive, assured performance for a debut, fiction that feels like useful, enlightening truth, unadorned and yet lyrical in the writing."

Jaffe's follow-up novel, Skateaway, tells the story of the Boone family, whose lives are far too controversial for their blue-collar town of Lukin, Ohio. The family's three children are affected by their mother's work as an OB/GYN who performs abortions despite protests from the local residents; meanwhile, their artist father descends into mental illness. Beth E. Andersen, in a review for Library Journal, wrote that "Jaffe's likable cast of characters lures the reader on … with language so piercingly on target it feels poetic." A contributor for Publishers Weekly remarked that, "although sometimes Jaffe's turns of phrase twist self-consciously, his finely tuned prose reclaims mundane, Midwestern America from flat eighties minimalism," and GraceAnne A. DeCandido called it a "brilliantly imagined and gorgeously written story, with … precise emotional tone and tempo."

Whirlwind, Jaffe's next book, tells the story of divorced North Carolina weatherman Lucas Prouty, and what happens when he goes missing while cover-ing Hurricane Isabel. Presumed dead, Prouty causes a media frenzy when he turns up more than a week later. In a review for Library Journal, contributor Andrea Tarr commented that Jaffe "ably illustrates callous media manipulations and paparazzi ploys." A contributor for Publishers Weekly opined that "Jaffe's sharp, ironic satire of the TV news industry is lively and funny," while Carol Haggas, writing for Booklist, remarked that "Jaffe avoids painting Prouty as just another goofy weather guy in a bad sports coat. Instead, Lucas is everyman ever caught in a moral dilemma."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 1, 1996, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Dance Real Slow, p. 1343; September 15, 1999, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of Skateaway, p. 233; January 1, 2000, review of Skateaway, p. 817; September 1, 2004, Carol Haggas, review of Whirlwind, p. 61.

Entertainment Weekly, April 26, 1996, review of Dance Real Slow, p. 49; March 12, 1999, Michael Grant Jaffe, "Dry Spell: A Novel Experience," p. 16; October 22, 2004, Leah Greenblatt, review of Whirlwind, p. 101.

Financial Post, September 21, 1996, Stephen Smith, review of Dance Real Slow, p. 29.

Library Journal, October 15, 1999, Beth E. Andersen, review of Skateaway, p. 106; September 1, 2004, Andrea Tarr, review of Whirlwind, p. 140.

New York Times, February 6, 2000, Patrice Clark Koelsch, review of Skateaway.

People, November 29, 2004, Debby Waldman, review of Whirlwind, p. 57.

Publishers Weekly, April 24, 1995, "Agency Expands," p. 19; January 22, 1996, review of Dance Real Slow, p. 57; May 6, 1996, Paul Nathan, review of Dance Real Slow, p. 25; August 23, 1999, review of Skateaway, p. 47; October 4, 2004, review of Whirlwind, p. 69.