-
Get a Free Issue
of our Ezine!
Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Elizabeth Gaffney is a native of Brooklyn, NY. She graduated with honors from Vassar College and holds an M.F.A. in fiction from Brooklyn College; she also studied philosophy and German at Ludwig-Maximillian University in Munich.
Her first novel, Metropolis, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, was published in 2005. Her second novel, When the World Was Young, was published in 2014. Her stories have appeared in many magazines, and she has translated four books from German.
Gaffney has been a resident artist at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony and the Blue Mountain Center. She also teaches fiction and serves as the editor at large of the literary magazine A Public Space.
She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the neurologist Alex Boro, and their daughters.
Elizabeth Gaffney's website
This bio was last updated on 02/25/2016. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
What was the inspiration behind Metropolis? How did you
come up with this particular story and these characters?
My first two decisions were to write about a time
different
from my own and to take up a male character as a protagonist. I
wanted to learn something while I was working on the novel and to get
away from the limitations of my own point of view. Where I stuck close to
home was in the setting—New York City. I was born here and have lived
here most of my life. In fact, I was interested in the idea of using the city as
one of the main characters right from the beginning. The title was one of
the first things to come to me. I chose a young, unlucky, struggling immigrant
character for my hero because I think everyone can relate to the difficulty
of creating an identity. It's the biggest job we human beings have
during that trying period of puberty and adolescence—that's why coming-of-age novels are so universal.
By picking the 1870s as my time period, I was
trying to make the book a coming-of-age novel for the city and for the
nation, too. This was a time of grand infrastructure projects that still shape
our urban landscapes and allow us to sustain the population density that we
do...
Named for Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Lawrence Doctorow occupies a central position in the history of American literature. On a shortlist that might also include Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, John Updike, Saul Bellow, and Don ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Metropolis
Try:
Homer & Langley
by E.L. Doctorow
Ken Follett is one of the world's best-loved authors, selling more than 188 million copies of his thirty-six books. Follett's first bestseller was Eye of the Needle, a spy story set in the Second World War. In 1989, The ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Metropolis
Try:
Fall of Giants
by Ken Follett
We recommend 9 similar authors
.gif)
The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl
by Bart Yates
A saga spanning 12 significant days across nearly 100 years in the life of a single man.
.png)
Smothermoss by Alisa Alering
A haunting, imaginative, and twisting tale of two sisters and the menacing, unexplained forces that threaten them and their rural mountain community.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
