Goldberg, Gerald Jay 1929-

PERSONAL:

Born December 30, 1929, in New York, NY; son of Nathan and Henriette Goldberg; married Nancy Marmer (an art critic), 1954; children: Robert. Education: Purdue University, B.S., 1952; New York University, M.A., 1955; University of Minnesota, Ph.D., 1958.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of English, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095. Agent—Georges Borchardt, Inc., 136 East 57th St., New York, NY 10022.

CAREER:

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, instructor, 1954-57; Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, assistant professor of English, 1958-64; University of California, Los Angeles, assistant professor, 1964-68, associate professor, 1969-73, professor of English and American Literature, 1974-91, professor emeritus, 1991—; visiting professor, Williams College, 1981, and Queens College, 1985-87.

MEMBER:

Authors Guild, National Humanities Series (advisory committee member of Western Center, 1972-73), PEN American Center.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fullbright Professorship, University of Zaragoza, Spain, 1962-63; Fellow of Institute of Creative Arts (University of California), 1966-67, 1969-70; The Lynching of Orin Newfield selected as 1970 "Notable Book of the Year" by New York Times and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; Anchors: Brokaw, Jennings, Rather and the Evening News named finalist for National Association of Broadcasters 1990 "Media Book of the Year Award"; Heart Payments named "Best Twentieth century Novel about an Artist" by Art News.

WRITINGS:

Notes from the Diaspora (short stories), Atelier 21 (Hanover, NH), 1962.

(Editor with Nancy Marmer Goldberg) The Modern Critical Spectrum, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1962.

The Fate of Innocence, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1965.

The National Standard (novel), Holt (New York, NY), 1968.

The Lynching of Orin Newfield (novel), Dial (New York, NY), 1970.

(With Karl Keller, Lionel Trilling, Clifton Fadiman and others) American Literature since 1945, 1971.

126 Days of Continuous Sunshine (short stories), Dial (New York, NY), 1972.

Heart Payments, Viking (New York, NY), 1982.

(With Robert Goldberg) Anchors: Brokaw, Jennings, Rather and the Evening News, Birch Lane (Secaucus, NJ), 1990; reprinted in Today's Best Nonfiction, Reader's Digest (Pleasantville, NY) 1991.

(With Robert Goldberg) Citizen Turner: The Wild Rise of an American Tycoon, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1995.

Contributor of fiction, articles, and reviews to periodicals, including: Harper's Bazaar, Shenandoah, Works in Progress, South Atlantic Quarterly, Art in America, Iowa Review, New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, Boston Review, Los Angeles Times, Nation, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, Quest, Wall Street Journal, Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction, Art and Literature, and Lugano Review. Editor of Faulkner Studies. Founding editor of Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction.

SIDELIGHTS:

After writing The National Standard, Gerald Jay Goldberg once commented: "‘This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it,’ said Emerson, and they didn't. Witness slavery and the Mexican war. More than one hundred years later there's still slavery and now it's Vietnam. Why, America, are you suffering from a foolish consistency? … Thus, for a writer today it's hard to decide which is the more urgent—a sense of humor or a sense of outrage. I try to keep both and cope. Non-realism is the method, for it creates an aesthetic room in which anything can happen…. The old ways of seeing things won't do in such a room, for now we have new relationships established and new meanings revealed. This is the ideal room for satire, and it is the one I've chosen for The National Standard."

The screenplay adaptation of Goldberg's second novel, The Lynching of Orin Newfield was written by him for Universal Pictures.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Atlantic, March, 1982, p. 88.

Bestsellers, April, 1982, Bernard Wasserstein, review of Heart Payments.

Booklist, November 15, 1970, p. 253; December 1, 1981; July 19, 1995.

Business Week, July 17, 1995, David Greising, review of Citizen Turner: The Wild Rise of an American Tycoon, p. 16.

Chicago Tribune, July 10, 1995, Tim Nolan, review of Citizen Turner.

Columbia Journalism Review, September 1, 1995, Neil Hickey, review of Citizen Turner, pp. 56-58.

Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction, 1979.

Crosscurents, winter, 1981-82, Linda Brown Michelson, interview with Goldberg, pp. 54-62.

Editor & Publisher, September 16, 1995, Hiley Ward, review of Citizen Turner, p. 20.

Evening News, January 19, 1972, John London, interview with Goldberg.

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1968; July 1, 1970; June 15, 1972; December 1, 1981; July 15, 1990; May 1, 1995.

Library Journal, May 15, 1968; July 1, 1968, "First Novels"; December 1, 1981; July 17, 1995.

Life, October 23, 1970, William Beauchamp, review of The Lynching of Orwin Newfield.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, June 16, 1968; November 15, 1970, Carolyn See, review of The Lynching of Orwin Newfield, p. 61; August 30, 1972, Robert Kirsch, review of 126 Days of Continuous Sunshine, p. 14; March 18, 1982, Kristina Gregory, review of Heart Payments, p. 24; December 16, 1990, p. 2.

Nation, July 5, 1995, pp. 24-26.

National Observer, September 30, 1972, Robert Ostermann, review of 126 Days of Continuous Sunshine.

New Yorker, April 3, 1971, p. 138.

New York Post, March 27, 1972, Jerry Tallmer, interview with Goldberg about 126 Days of Continuous Sunshine.

New York Review of Books, April 18, 1996, pp. 22-27.

New York Times Book Review, November 10, 1968; September 13, 1970; October 11, 1970, Richard Lingeman, "American Notebook"; December 6, 1970, C.D.B. Bryan, review of The Lynching of Orin Newfield, p. 4; November 19, 1972; October 14, 1990.

Publishers Weekly, May 18, 1970; July 6, 1970; June 19, 1972, p. 58; December 11, 1981; July 13, 1990; May 15, 1995, p. 63; June 5, 1995, Bob Sumner, interview with Goldberg, p. 25.

Sunday Times, January 16, 1972, Julian Symons, review of The Lynching of Orin Newfield, p. 31.

Television Quarterley, 1996, Vol. 28, no. 1, Lawrence Laurent, review of Citizen Turner, pp. 83-87.

Time, September 25, 1972, John Skow, review of 126 Days of Continuous Sunshine.

Wall Street Journal, October 12, 1990; August 9, 1995, Erich Eichman, review of Citizen Turner, p. A7.

Washington Post Book World, August 20, 1972; November 1, 1990, Eleanor Randolph, review of Anchors: Brokaw, Jennings, Rather and the Evening News, p. D3; July 16, 1995, Peter Collier, review of Citizen Turner.

Washington Times, October 25, 1990, Don Kovit, interview with Goldberg, pp. E1-FF.