Lynn, David H.

(David Lynn)

PERSONAL: Married Wendy Singer (a college professor); children: Aaron, Elizabeth. Education: Kenyon College, B.A.; University of Virginia, M.A., Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Home—Gambier, OH. Office—Kenyon Review, Walton House, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH 43022-9623. E-mail—lynnd@kenyon.edu.

CAREER: Kenyon College, Gambier, OH, professor of English and editor of the Kenyon Review, 1994–. Member of board of directors, Council of Literary Magazines and Presses.

AWARDS, HONORS: Fulbright scholarship, 1995–96.

WRITINGS:

The Hero's Tale: Narrators in the Early Modern Novel, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Fortune Telling (short stories), Carnegie-Mellon University Press (Pittsburgh, PA), 1998.

Wrestling with Gabriel (novel), Carnegie-Mellon University Press (Pittsburgh, PA), 2002.

(Editor) The Best of the Kenyon Review, introduction by Joyce Carol Oates, Sourcebooks (Naperville, IL), 2003.

Year of Fire (short stories), Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2005.

Also contributor to Periodicals.

SIDELIGHTS: An English professor who has served as editor of the Kenyon Review for many years, David H. Lynn has also published several well-received short-story collections. The author's stories are typically set in modern times and are character-driven tales covering a wide range of themes. Fortune Telling, his first short-story collection, includes tales about school bullying, arranged marriages, and Jewish characters trying to adjust to mainstream America. Praising both the dialogue and prose of the collection, Library Journal critic Doris Lynch declared Fortune Telling to be a "fine, first collection." A Publishers Weekly contributor praised the collection's "dry, credible sketches."

Lynn's second story collection, Year of Fire, contains nineteen tales on such topics as loneliness, aging, racism, and "human foibles and failings," according to a Kirkus Reviews writer. The reviewer felt that "Lynn's skill is at times considerable." In Booklist, Ellen Loughran indicated that Year of Fire shows that Lynn is "a master of the ambivalent resolution" whose work contains "some really brilliant writing."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 2003, John Green, review of The Best of the Kenyon Review, p. 379; November 1, 2005, Ellen Loughran, review of Year of Fire, p. 24.

Bookwatch, June, 1998, review of Fortune Telling, p. 8.

Choice, June, 1989, review of The Hero's Tale: Narrators in the Early Modern Novel, p. 1683.

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2005, review of Year of Fire, p. 1103.

Library Journal, May 1, 1991, Bill Katz, review of The Best of the Kenyon Review, p. 114; June 15, 1998, Doris Lynch, review of Fortune Telling, p. 109; November 1, 2003, Kathryn R. Bartelt, review of The Best of the Kenyon Review, p. 81; May 1, 2005, Susan Lense, "The Kenyon Review: Incubator for Good Fiction," p. 130.

Modern Fiction Studies, winter, 1989, Marvin Magalaner, review of The Hero's Tale, p. 849.

Publishers Weekly, June 1, 1998, review of Fortune Telling, p. 48; September 26, 2005, review of Year of Fire, p. 61.

Virginia Quarterly Review, spring, 1990, review of The Hero's Tale, p. 48.

ONLINE

Kenyon College Web site, http://www.kenyon.edu/ (January 23, 2006), brief biography of David H. Lynn.

Kenyon Review Online, http://www.kenyonreview.org/ (January 23, 2006), brief biography of David H. Lynn.