Brockmeier, Kevin 1972-

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Brockmeier, Kevin 1972-

Personal

Born December 6, 1972.

Addresses

Home and office—Little Rock, AR. Agent—Jennifer Carlson, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency, 27 W. 20th St., Ste. 1107, New York, NY 10011.

Career

Novelist and short story writer. Instructor at Iowa Writers Workshop, University of Iowa.

Awards, Honors

Nelson Algren Award, Chicago Tribune; Italo Calvino Short Fiction Award; James Michener-Paul Engle fel-

lowship; three O. Henry prizes; National Endowment for the Arts grant; Porter Fund Award for Literary Excellence; Worthern Prize; Borders Original Voices Award.

Writings

FOR CHILDREN

City of Names (novel), Viking (New York, NY), 2002. Grooves: A Kind of Mystery (novel), Katherine Tegen Books (New York, NY), 2006.

OTHER

Things That Fall from the Sky (short fiction), Pantheon (New York, NY), 2002.

The Truth about Celia (adult novel), Pantheon (New York, NY), 2003.

The Brief History of the Dead (adult novel), Pantheon (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor of fiction to periodicals, including Oxford American, Georgia Review, New Yorker, and McSweeney's. Contributor of fiction to anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and The O. Henry Prize Stories.

Adaptations

Warner Bros. acquired film rights to The Brief History of the Dead.

Sidelights

An O. Henry Prize-winning author of short fiction, Kevin Brockmeier has gained critical recognition for his lyrical prose. Though he began his career focusing on short fiction for adults, Brockmeier has also expanded his audience to teen readers with the novels City of Names and Grooves: A Kind of Mystery. "I began writing children's fiction for two reasons," the author explained during an interview for Earth Goat online. "First of all, I began to read children's fiction again … and I found that the best of them offered me as much aesthetic pleasure as the adult fiction I was reading. Second, when I was in college, I used to teach at a nursery school, where I would make up stories for the children in my class, and I wanted to find a way of continuing to tell stories to those particular children."

In all his works, Brockmeier creates characters who often find themselves in absurd situations. His fiction borders on the fantastical and often draws on fairy tales for inspiration; one story in Things That Fall from the Sky, for example, brings Rumplestiltskin into the future—or, at least, half of him because, according to the Grimm fairy tale, the original Rumplestiltskin tore himself in half. Other tales include the story of a man who lives on a never-ending airplane, a thirty-something male babysitter who becomes obsessed with the toddler he cares for, and a man who realizes the sky is falling while he copes with his wife's extramarital affair. Reviewing Things That Fall from the Sky, Booklist contributor James Klise wrote that Brockmeier "demonstrates a fluid use of language, playfulness of story, and mature insight into a world" of strange choices, while in Publishers Weekly a critic deemed the author "a formidable young writer."

In contrast to the serious overtones in Things That Fall from the Sky, the plot of City of Names centers around a book discovered by fifth-grader Howie that is titled The Secret Guide to North Mellwood. A fold-out map of Howie's home city contained within the book allows the boy to transport instantly to any point on it when he utters the location's "true" name. Even stranger things are happening below ground, however; town hero Larry Boone, thought to be dead for centuries, is still alive and well and keeping the magic of the city's names flowing. "There's nothing like a bit of unexpected magic to liven up a thoroughly ordinary day," Anne O'Malley wrote in her Booklist review of the novel, while in Kirkus Reviews a critic deemed City of Names "a giddy but enjoyable ride with a whiff of mystery … that may leave readers regarding their own supposedly ordinary neighborhoods with new eyes."

Also written for younger readers, Grooves is an oddball adventure that follows the same tone of City of Names. When Dwayne, a seventh grader living in a small town, runs a phonograph needle down the seam of his blue jeans, he discovers that the grooves of the pants contain a hidden call for help. With two friends, Dwayne tackles the mystery head on, even when it requires challenging the town's most powerful businessman, who may be turning factory workers into personality-less zombies. Readers who enjoy "wacky fantasies … will be delighted," predicted a Kirkus Reviews contributor in a review of Grooves. Debbie Carton, writing in Booklist, considered Brockmeier's tale "a frothy, fanciful, and entertaining blend of science fiction and mystery," and Walter Minkel wrote in School Library Journal that, "with its crazy deadpan humor, [Grooves] … is a hoot."

Brockmeier's adult novels include The Truth about Celia, which focuses on the kidnapping of a seven-year-old girl, and The Brief History of the Dead. Recommended to sophisticated teen readers by School Library Journal critic Matthew L. Moffett, The Brief History of the Dead follows a researcher struggling to survive in Antarctica and make her way back to a civilization that may no longer exist. Meanwhile, the still-existing dead dwell in a place known as The City, but can remain there only as long as a living person remembers them. "The elegiac, thoughtful tone of the writing is balanced by the survivor's adventure-filled travels across the frozen landscape," wrote Moffett. Charles de Lint, complimenting Brockmeier's writing, noted in the Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy that "his prose is wonderful, ranging from straightforward to elegant and luminous."

"I've found that my children's books are more conversational in tone than my adult books, and a lot more jokey," Brockmeier noted in his Earth Goat interviewer. "I want them to read as though you're listening to a child who's simply telling you his story as it occurs to him, along with anything else that happens to cross his mind." In characterizing his work to Diane Baroni for Interview, Brockmeier dubbed his style "speculative autobiography." Regarding his inspiration, he told an interviewer for Powells.com: "I write out of gratitude for all the books I have loved over the years."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 15, 2002, James Klise, review of Things That Fall from the Sky, p. 990; June 1, 2002, Anne O'Malley, review of City of Names, p. 1720; July, 2003, Elsa Gaztambide, review of The Truth about Celia, p. 1863; January 1, 2006, Allison Block, review of The Brief History of the Dead, p. 52; February 1, 2006, Debbie Carton, review of Grooves: A Kind of Mystery, p. 47.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, May, 2002, review of City of Names, p. 312; March, 2006, Karen Coats, review of Grooves, p. 303.

Guardian (London, England), April 8, 2006, Colin Greenland, "Living on Cola," p. 17.

Interview, April, 2002, Diane Baroni, "Book 'Em: Five First-Time Authors to Bookmark," p. 76.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2002, review of Things that Fall from the Sky, p. 119; May 1, 2002, review of City of Names, p. 649; May 1, 2003, review of The Truth about Celia, p. 622; December 1, 2005, review of The Brief History of the Dead, p. 1243; January 15, 2006, review of Grooves, p. 82.

Kliatt, November, 2006, Mary Purucker, review of The Brief History of the Dead, p. 42.

Library Journal, February 15, 2006, Barbara Hoffert, review of The Brief History of the Dead, p. 106.

Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy, April, 2006, Charles de Lint, review of The Brief History of the Dead, p. 33.

New Statesman, March 27, 2006, Alex Larman, "End of the World as We Know It," p. 54.

Publishers Weekly, January 14, 2002, review of Things That Fall from the Sky, p. 37; May 27, 2002, review of City of Names, p. 60; June 30, 2003, review of The Truth about Celia, p. 56; December 19, 2005, review of The Brief History of the Dead, p. 38.

School Library Journal, July, 2002, Elaine E. Knight, review of City of Names, p. 113; March, 2006, Walter Minkel, review of Grooves, p. 218; July, 2006, Matthew L. Moffett, review of The Brief History of the Dead, p. 132.

Washington Post Book World, April 2, 2006, Andrew Sean Greer, "Soul Survivor," p. 13.