Stern, Richard G.

▪ American author

in full  Richard Gustave Stern 

born Feb. 25, 1928, New York, N.Y., U.S.

      American author and teacher whose fiction examines the intricacies of marital difficulties and family relationships.

      Stern was educated at the University of North Carolina (B.A., 1947), Harvard University (M.A., 1949), and the University of Iowa (Ph.D., 1954). From 1955 he taught writing and literature at the University of Chicago. His novels, short-story collections, essays, and literary miscellanies were critically acclaimed for their erudition, insight, and wit, although his urbane use of language and writing styles were sometimes viewed more as attempts to dazzle the reader than as means to communicate.

      His novels include Golk (1960), a humorous examination of the television industry; Europe: or, Up and Down with Schreiber and Baggish (1961), concerning two middle-aged American men in postwar Germany; In Any Case (1963), a combination mystery and novel of ideas, in which a father attempts to clear his dead son of charges of treason; Stitch (1965), about an expatriate American sculptor, modeled after poet Ezra Pound (Pound, Ezra); Other Men's Daughters (1973), an autobiographical account of a middle-aged male professor in love with a young female student; Natural Shocks (1978), in which a journalist must deal with the deaths of those close to him; and A Father's Words (1986), about a divorced father and his relationship with his grown children.

      Teeth, Dying, and Other Matters (1964) is a collection of short fiction, a play, and an essay. The Books in Fred Hampton's Apartment (1973) contains essays and miscellaneous pieces. Stern's other works include Noble Rot: Stories 1949–1988 (1989), Shares and Other Fictions (1992), One Person and Another: On Writers and Writing (1993), and A Sistermony (1995).

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