Hall, Albyn Leah 1965-

PERSONAL:

Born 1965. Hobbies and other interests: Movies, theater, art, smart restaurants, playing the Irish fiddle, London, soccer, train travel.

ADDRESSES:

Home—London, England. Agent—Mary Ann Naples, The Creative Culture Inc., 72 Spring St., Ste. 304, New York, NY 10012. E-mail—albynsroad@blueyonder.co.uk.

CAREER:

Psychotherapist, writer.

WRITINGS:

Deliria, Serpent's Tail (New York, NY), 1993.

The Rhythm of the Road, Thomas Dunne Books (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Albyn Leah Hall was raised in New York, Los Angeles, and eventually London, with side trips to Ireland. She credits this eclectic background with providing her work with a wealth of different cultural influences. Despite being the child of Hollywood parents—her father created the nighttime soap opera Dallas—Hall feels equally affected by film, music, and literature, all of which have an emotional impact on her that carries over into her writing. In addition, she works as a psychotherapist, a career that makes her highly sensitive to and aware of human behavior, and that provides excellent inspiration for her stories. Her first novel, Deliria, tells the dark story of a young American, Claudia, who escapes life in Los Angeles to attend art school in London, where she falls into a relationship with a drug-dealing Irishman. Lisa Orzepowski, in a review for Booklist, called Hall's effort an "excellent dark, and ironically addicting first novel." Review of Contemporary Fiction contributor Michelle Latiolais praised Hall's work, writing: "Here is a first novel that is beautifully mature, crafted with tremendous skill, and enlivened almost sentence for sentence with perception so finely honed it startles us back into a world we thought we already knew."

In The Rhythm of the Road, Hall writes about Jo, a half-American, half-Irish girl riding with her father Bobby in his truck when he picks up a female hitchhiker from Texas. The girl, a budding country singer, rouses memories of Bobby's one-time musical aspirations, and interrupts the father-daughter bonding time. June Sawyers, writing in Booklist, found the book to be "full of flesh-and-blood characters and genuine surprises." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly called it "both poignant and unsettling."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 1994, Lisa Orzepowski, review of Deliria, p. 400; December 15, 2006, June Sawyers, review of The Rhythm of the Road, p. 21.

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2006, review of The Rhythm of the Road, p. 1034.

Library Journal, November 15, 2006, Faye A. Chadwell, review of The Rhythm of the Road, p. 56.

Publishers Weekly, October 30, 2006, review of The Rhythm of the Road, p. 38.

Review of Contemporary Fiction, March 22, 1995, Michelle Latiolais, review of Deliria, p. 163.

ONLINE

Albyn Leah Hall Home Page,http://www.albynleahhall.co.uk (April 23, 2007).

Bella Online,http://www.bellaonline.com/ (April 23, 2007), M.E. Wood, "Author Q & A with Albyn Leah Hall."

Best Reviews,http://thebestreviews.com/ (January 23, 2007), Viviane Crystal, review of The Rhythm of the Road.

BookLoons,http://www.bookloons.com/ (April 23, 2007), Mary Ann Smyth, review of The Rhythm of the Road.

Curled Up with a Good Book,http://www.curledup.com/ (April 23, 2007), Michael Leonard, review of The Rhythm of the Road.

Pop Matters,http://www.popmatters.com/ (February 19, 2007), Jason B. Jones, review of The Rhythm of the Road.