Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Readalikes
Allegra Goodman was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1967, but grew up in Honolulu. She has been writing prose avidly since the age of seven.
Her first book, a collection of stories titled Total Immersion, was published in 1989 on the same day that she graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. While pursuing her Ph.D in English at Stanford, Goodman also wrote for The New Yorker and completed her second book of stories, The Family Markowitz, which quickly became a national bestseller. The Family Markowitz was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year for 1996 and was the fiction winner in the First Annual Salon Book Awards.
Her novels to date are: Kaaterskill Falls (1998), Paradise Park (2001), Intuition (2006), The Other Side of the Island (2008) and The Cookbook Collector (2010). Her short story La Vita Nuova was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2011 and was broadcast on Public Radio International's Selected Shorts in February 2012.
When her husband accepted a job at MIT, they moved back to Cambridge Mass, where they and their now four children still live.
Allegra Goodman's website
This bio was last updated on 07/08/2014. We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's a tough task. So, please help us - if the information about this author is out of date or inaccurate, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and publishers: If you wish to make changes to a bio, send the complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we can replace the old with the new.
I was born in Brooklyn New York, but only lived there two weeks. I spent my
childhood in Hawaii, from the time I was two until I went away to college. At
Harvard where I was in the class of '89, I majored in English and philosophy,
and wrote and saw the publication of the stories that comprise my first book,
Total Immersion. After graduation, I got married and spent a year in England
writing fiction while my husband David studied "maths" at Cambridge University.
Then we went to Stanford, where he got a Ph.D. in Computer Science, and I got a
Ph.D. in English. While at Stanford I wrote most of the stories that make up my
second book, The Family Markowitz. Many were published in The New
Yorker. But throughout this time I was working on one long term project, a
novel: Kaaterskill Falls.
I wrote Kaaterskill Falls for three reasons: The first was that I wanted
to capture a particular time and place that had made an indelible impression on
me and my family. My mother's family had a house in a small town in upstate New
York, and every summer they would leave Brooklyn to enjoy the mountains, the
lakes, the trees, the shade, and their dear friends and neighbors, who also came
up every year ...
Become a Member and discover books that entertain, engage & enlighten.
The Dutch House is my introduction to Ann Patchett, which, after reading it, surprises me. I had ...
The Prophets
by Robert Jones Jr.
A stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation.
Reader ReviewsThe Fortunate Ones
by Ed Tarkington
An engrossing story of class, love, and loyalty for fans of Kevin Wilson's Nothing to See Here.
Reader ReviewsThe House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O'Donnell
Introducing a detective duo for the ages who unlock the secrets of a startling Victorian mystery.
Visitors can view some of BookBrowse for free. Full access is for members only.
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.