Browner, Jesse 1961–

PERSONAL:

Born 1961, in New York, NY; married; children: two daughters. Education: Attended Bard College and the University of Leningrad.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. E-mail—jesse@jessebrowner.com.

CAREER:

Writer, translator.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS; EXCEPT AS NOTED

Conglomeros, Random House (New York, NY), 1992.

Turnaway, Villard (New York, NY), 1996.

The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down: An Informal History of Hospitality (nonfiction), Bloomsbury (New York, NY), 2003.

The Uncertain Hour, Bloomsbury (New York, NY), 2007.

TRANSLATOR

Jean Cocteau, Diary of an Unknown, Paragon House (St. Paul, MN), 1988.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to Merline, Paragon House (St. Paul, MN), 1989.

Paul Eluard, Letters to Gala, Paragon House (St. Paul, MN), 1989.

Jean Cocteau, Souvenir Portraits, Paragon House (St. Paul, MN), 1990.

Frédéric Vitoux, Céline: A Biography, Paragon House (St. Paul, MN), 1992.

Matthieu Ricard, Happiness, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to works by others, including Between Sea and Sky: Landscapes of Long Island's North Fork, by Jake Rajs, Monacelli Press (New York, NY), 2006; contributor to periodicals, including Food & Wine, Nest, Gastronomica, New York, and the New York Times Book Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jesse Browner was born in New York City and moved with his family to Europe when he was eight years old. He returned to the States to attend Bard College and was also educated at the University of Leningrad. Browner is an author and also the translator of works by Jean Cocteau, Paul Eluard, Rainer Maria Rilke, Frédéric Vitoux, and Matthieu Ricard.

Browner's own writings include his debut novel Conglomeros, narrated by Aaron X, who finds and captures a fantastic creature in the forests of Romania after seeing its image represented in a sculpture by a surrealist artist. He brings it to a farmhouse in upstate New York, where he teaches the spiderlike Conglomeros, which has three human bodies (a female between two males), one head, six legs, and eight arms. Instructor and creature eventually fall in love and move to Manhattan, where Conglomeros leaves his mentor for the leader of an East Village cult.

Turnaway is the story of Ben Givens, an unemployed New Yorker who is washed up onto the beach of Turnaway Island when his dinghy founders in a storm off the coast of Manhattan. There he meets the island's sole inhabitants, Austrian physicist Joseph Ross and his ward, Elias Hutchinson, a young man who claims to be the last member of the Siwanoy Algonquin tribe. Ben takes the recluse to Manhattan, where Elias finds love with Emily Wolfe, leaving Ben to wonder why his own pursuit of intimacy has failed. A Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that Browner has written ‘a wickedly comic tale that's also a heartfelt paean to the glories of friendship and nostalgia."

The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down: An Informal History of Hospitality is a history of inviting and being invited. The duchess of the title was a guest of Louis XIV at Versailles where she was offered a low stool that denoted her status, which she declined to use. Browner concludes that hosts actually invite people to satisfy their own needs rather than those of the guests. He studies hosts who include Adolph Hit- ler, Nero, Gertrude Stein, Epicurus, and John James Audubon. Browner also recalls a family dinner during the time when his mother was dying, teddy bear teas shared with a daughter, and poker nights when he supplied the sandwiches. Booklist contributor Carol Haggas called the history ‘a fascinating and factual study of the fine art of being friendly."

The Uncertain Hour is Browner's story of ancient Rome under Nero, patron of Titus Petronius Niger, the author who wrote Satyricon and who loves Melissa Silia, a commoner who returns his love. Petronius unwisely becomes part of the imperial inner circle, a decision that dooms him to servitude over freedom. When he is falsely implicated in a plot against Nero, he arranges a final sumptuous meal for his closest friends, during which he leaves at intervals to sever his veins, with the intent of bleeding to death by dawn, thus taking his life to avoid dishonor. Curled Up with a Good Book Web site contributor Michael Leonard wrote: ‘Rendered in exquisite detail, Jesse Browner's The Uncertain Hour is a fascinating foray into sights, sounds and smells of life in Ancient Rome."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 1992, Alice Joyce, review of Conglomeros, p. 401; April 1, 1996, June Vigor, review of Turnaway, p. 1342; September 15, 2003, Carol Haggas, review of The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down: An Informal History of Hospitality, p. 183; April 15, 2007, Benjamin Segedin, review of The Uncertain Hour, p. 34.

Books, June 2, 2007, Kristin Kloberdanz, review of The Uncertain Hour, p. 8.

Economist, September 13, 2003, review of The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down, p. 78.

Library Journal, June 1, 1990, Grove Koger, review of Souvenir Portraits, p. 128; April 1, 1992, Bob Ivey, review of Céline: A Biography, p. 120; April 1, 1996, Charles Michaud, review of Turnaway, p. 114; March 1, 2007, Shalini Miskelly, review of The Uncertain Hour, p. 68.

New Yorker, August 24, 1992, George Steiner, review of Céline, p. 81.

New York Times Book Review, August 16, 1992, Gilbert Sorrentino, review of Céline, p. 9; February 21, 1993, Scott Veale, review of Conglomeros; November 16, 2003, Elizabeth Hanson, review of The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down.

Publishers Weekly, March 24, 1989, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Letters to Gala, p. 56; April 20, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Souvenir Portraits, p. 65; February 10, 1992, review of Céline, p. 63; August 17, 1992, review of Conglomeros, p. 485; April 8, 1996, review of Turnaway, p. 56; July 28, 2003, review of The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down, p. 87; February 26, 2007, review of The Uncertain Hour, p. 52.

Review of Contemporary Fiction, September 10, 2007, Dominic Di Bernardi, review of Céline, p. 279.