Brodkey, Harold

▪ 1997

      (AARON ROY WEINTRAUB), U.S. short-story writer and novelist (b. Oct. 25, 1930, Staunton, Ill.—d. Jan. 26, 1996, New York, N.Y.), was a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine for 30 years before publishing the novel he had been working on for most of his adult life. His inability to produce the promised novel, coupled with his sinuous, self-reflective style, unabashedly autobiographical oeuvre, and high self-regard, made him a controversial figure in the literary world. Having lost his mother at 17 months, Brodkey was adopted by cousins whose name he took. His adoptive parents, too, died while he was a boy, events that both traumatized him and informed his art. Brodkey attended Harvard University and soon began publishing short stories. His first collection, First Love and Other Sorrows (1957), contained stories of youthful romance and marriage for which he used incidents from his own life. He then began writing the autobiographical novel that occupied him for most of the next 30 years. Titled The Runaway Soul, it was finally published in 1991 to mixed reviews. Excerpts from it were published earlier as Women and Angels (1985). Wiley Silenowicz, the protagonist of The Runaway Soul, is also featured in 12 of the 18 tales in Stories in an Almost Classical Mode (1988). Brodkey in 1994 published another novel—Profane Friendship, about a homosexual affair in Venice—shortly after his dramatic announcement in the pages of The New Yorker that he had AIDS.

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▪ American author

in full  Harold Roy Brodkey,  original name in full  Aaron Roy Weintraub  

born Oct. 25, 1930, Staunton, Ill., U.S.

died Jan. 26, 1996, New York, N.Y.

      American novelist and short-story writer whose near-autobiographical fiction avoids plot, instead concentrating upon careful, close description of feeling.

      Brodkey attended Harvard University (B.A., 1952) and soon began publishing short stories in literary magazines. His first collection, First Love and Other Sorrows (1957), contains stories of youthful romance and marriage, using incidents from his own life. It was about this time that he began writing an autobiographical novel that was to occupy him for most of the next 30 years. The novel, The Runaway Soul, was finally published in 1991 to mixed reviews. Critics compared its length and subject matter to Marcel Proust (Proust, Marcel)'s Remembrance of Things Past, but it was criticized by some for its difficult prose style. Excerpts from it had been published earlier as Women and Angels (1985), which includes portraits of his mother, a Jewish immigrant who died when he was two, and his fretful adoptive mother. Wiley Silenowicz, the protagonist of The Runaway Soul, is also featured in 12 of the 18 tales in Stories in an Almost Classical Mode (1988).

      Brodkey taught at several universities and in 1987 became a staff writer for The New Yorker, which often published his fiction. His autobiography, This Wild Darkness: The Story of My Death, appeared in 1996, and several of his books were published posthumously, including the nonfiction meditation My Venice (1998) and the essay collection Sea Battles on Dry Land (1999).

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