Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Readalikes
How to pronounce Chris Bohjalian: bo-jail-yen (first syllable pronounced like to tie a bow)
Chris Bohjalian and his wife decided to leave New York City in 1986 for
"pastoral" Vermont after a wild and terrifying 45-minute cab ride that
ultimately dropped them at a crack house being stormed by police.
Fans of Mr. Bohjalian are probably very pleased that he did not take the advice
given him in college by the writer-in-residence when he applied for a writing
seminar. After reading the short story required for admittance, the
writer/instructor "slid my short story across the expanse of the desk as if it
were a piece of profoundly disagreeable road kill. 'I have three words for you,
she said. Be a banker'."
Instead he had the courage to follow his dream and take his own advice which he
now doles out to new writers wanting to be discovered. "Have a thick skin. Read
lots and write often about things that interest you passionately. The key is to
care so deeply about a subject that you are willing to give up a year or two of
your life to it."
Bohjalian's love affair with reading began at age 13 as the result of two
simultaneous events. His family moved from New York to Florida and a visit to
the orthodontist which resulted in his wearing a piece of headgear "that looked
like the business end of a backhoe". He couldn't speak when wearing it and
refused to wear it to school. With no opportunity to make after-school friends,
books became his best friends during that impressionable time period in his
life, adolescence.
He is the author of fifteen books, including the other New York Times bestsellers, The Night Strangers, Secrets of Eden, Skeletons at the Feast, The Double Bind, Before Your Know Kindness, and Midwives.
Chris's awards include the New England Society Book Award in 2012 (for The Night Strangers), the New England Book Award in 2002, and the Anahid Literary Award in 2000. His novel, Midwives, was a number one New York Times bestseller, a selection of Oprah's Book Club, a Publisher's Weekly "Best Book," and a New England Booksellers Association Discovery pick. His work had been translated into over 25 languages and three times become movies (Secrets of Eden, Midwives, and Past the Bleachers).
He has written for a wide variety of magazines, including Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest, and the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, and has been a columnist for Gannett's Burlington Free Press since 1992. Chris graduated from Amherst College, and lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter.
About This Biography
This biography was last updated on 09/05/2012. We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate, but with over 2500 lives to keep track of it's inevitable that some won't be as current or as complete as we would like. So, please help us - if the information about a particular author is out of date, inaccurate or simply very short, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and those connected with authors:
If you wish to make changes to your bio, send your complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we can replace the old with the new.
For additional interviews with Chris Bohjalian, please see the reading guides for Midwives and Skeletons at the Feast
The story behind the story: The kernel that led to the novel, The Sandcastle Girls
Sometimes my novels have positively elephantine gestation periods - and even that, in some cases, is an underestimate. A mother elephant carries her young for not quite two years; I have spent, in some cases, not quite two decades contemplating the tiniest seed of a story and wondering how it might grow into a novel.
Moreover, in the quarter-century I've been writing books, I've realized two things about a lengthy gestation period. First, the longer I spend allowing an idea to take root inside me, the better the finished book; second, the more time I spend thinking about a book, the less time I spend actually writing it. Here's a confession: The first draft of the novel for which I may always be known best, Midwives, took a mere (and eerily appropriate) nine months to write. Skeletons at the Feast, another book I will always be proud of, took only 10. But I spent a long time pondering both of these novels before ever setting a single word down on paper.
Perhaps in no case has the relationship between ...
Poet, essayist, and naturalist, Diane Ackerman is the author of many highly acclaimed works of nonfiction, including A Natural History of the Senses -- a book beloved by readers all over the world and the volumes Deep Play, A... (more)
If you enjoyed:
The Sandcastle Girls
Try:
The Zookeeper's Wife
by Diane Ackerman
Anonymous was a young woman at the time of the fall of Berlin. She was a journalist and editor during and after the war. (more)
If you enjoyed:
Skeletons at the Feast
Try:
A Woman In Berlin
by Anonymous
We recommend 33 similar authors
Darling Days
by iO Tillett Wright
A devastatingly powerful memoir of one young woman's extraordinary coming of age.
The Tea Planter's Wife
by Dinah Jefferies
An utterly engrossing, compulsive page-turner set in 1920s Ceylon.
An irresistible love story for fans of Beautiful Ruins and Where'd You Go, Bernadette?
About the book
Blood at the Root
"A gripping, timely, and important examination of American racism."
- PW Starred Review
Visitors can view some of BookBrowse for free. Full access is for members only.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends books that we believe to be best in class. Books that will whisk you to faraway places and times, that will expand your mind and challenge you -- the kinds of books you just can't wait to tell your friends about.
Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info & giveaways by email.
