Notable Literary Obituaries

waltky · May 15, 2018

Right Stuff author Tom Wolfe passes...

Bonfire of the Vanities author Tom Wolfe dies aged 88
15 May`18 - Tom Wolfe, author of The Right Stuff and The Bonfire of the Vanities, has died aged 88, his agent has confirmed.

The Right Stuff, about the first American astronauts, was adapted into a film in 1983 with Sam Shepard, Dennis Quaid and Ed Harris. The Bonfire of the Vanities, published in 1987, was a satire of 1980s excesses in New York and was also made into a film starring Tom Hanks in 1990. He also wrote The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, published in 1968. Wolfe died of an unspecified infection in a New York City hospital, his agent, Lynn Nesbit, told Reuters. He was a pioneer of New Journalism, which developed in the 1960s and 1970s, a literary style written from a subjective perspective as opposed to more traditional objective journalism.

Wolfe also pioneered New Journalism

His writing was often littered with exclamation points, italics and improbable words. Wolfe's book The New Journalism, published in 1973, was a collection of work by the likes of Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson and Norman Mailer. The editor of the New York Times Book Review described Wolfe's death as the "passing of an era". Wolfe won the Bad Sex in Fiction prize in 2004 for I Am Charlotte Simmons and was also shortlisted in 2012 for a scene in Back to Blood.

Tom Wolfe with Gloria Steinem - he was named GQ Man of the Year in 2015

He was known for coining phrases such as "radical chic" - a derogatory term for pretentious liberals - and "the me decade", which described the self-indulgence of the 1970s. He once told the Wall Street Journal: "I think every living moment of a human being's life, unless the person is starving or in immediate danger of death in some other way, is controlled by a concern for status."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44130788
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Space_Time · May 22, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/obituaries/bernard-lewis-islam-scholar-dies.html

Bernard Lewis, Influential Scholar of Islam, Is Dead at 101

Image

Bernard Lewis in his study holding a French newspaper with a picture of Saddam Hussein. Few outsiders and no academics had more influence with the Bush administration on Middle Eastern affairs than Mr. Lewis.CreditMarianne Barcellona/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images

By Douglas Martin

May 21, 2018

Bernard Lewis, an eminent historian of Islam who traced the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to a declining Islamic civilization, a controversial view that influenced world opinion and helped shape American foreign policy under President George W. Bush, died on Saturday in Voorhees Township, N.J. He was 101.

His longtime partner, Buntzie Churchill, confirmed the death, at a retirement facility.

Few outsiders and no academics had more influence with the Bush administration on Middle Eastern affairs than Mr. Lewis. The president carried a marked-up copy of one of his articles in his briefing papers and met with him before and after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Mr. Lewis gave briefings at the White House, the residence of Vice President Dick Cheney and the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

His essential argument about Islam was that Islamic civilization had been decaying for centuries, leaving extremists like Osama bin Laden in a position to exploit Muslims’ long-festering frustration by sponsoring terrorism on an international scale. After Arab terrorists hijacked commercial airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in a coordinated operation sanctioned by bin Laden, Mr. Lewis was immediately sought out by American policymakers.

He provided critical intellectual linkage between the religious fundamentalism of bin Laden, which he said was a response to oppressive Arab regimes, and the secular despotism of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Democracy, he said, was the solution for both. “Either we bring them freedom, or they destroy us,” Mr. Lewis wrote.

Though he later said he would have preferred that the United States had fomented rebellion in northern Iraq rather than invading the country, he was widely perceived to have beaten the drum for war. In an essay in The Wall Street Journal in 2002, he predicted that Iraqis would “rejoice” over an American invasion, a flawed forecast echoed by Mr. Cheney and others in the White House.

People spoke of a “Lewis doctrine” of imposing democracy on despotic regimes. His book “What Went Wrong? The Clash between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East” (2002) became a handbook for understanding what had happened on Sept. 11. (The book was at the printer when the attacks occurred.) Articles he wrote in The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The Wall Street Journal were widely discussed.
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Space_Time · May 23, 2018

https://www.yahoo.com/news/philip-roth-fearless-celebrated-author-dies-85-044700232.html

Philip Roth, fearless and celebrated author, dies at 85
Associated Press HILLEL ITALIE,Associated Press 1 hour 26 minutes ago
FILE - In this Sept. 8, 2008, file photo, author Philip Roth poses for a photo in the offices of his publisher, Houghton Mifflin, in New York. Roth, prize-winning novelist and fearless narrator of sex, religion and mortality, has died at age 85, his literary agent said Tuesday, May 22, 2018. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Philip Roth, the prize-winning novelist and fearless narrator of sex, death, assimilation and fate, from the comic madness of "Portnoy's Complaint" to the elegiac lyricism of "American Pastoral," died Tuesday night at age 85.

Roth's literary agent, Andrew Wylie, told The Associated Press that he died in a New York City hospital of congestive heart failure.

Author of more than 25 books, Roth was a fierce satirist and uncompromising realist, confronting readers in a bold, direct style that scorned false sentiment or hopes for heavenly reward. He was an atheist who swore allegiance to earthly imagination, whether devising pornographic functions for raw liver or indulging romantic fantasies about Anne Frank. In "The Plot Against America," published in 2004, he placed his own family under the anti-Semitic reign of President Charles Lindbergh. In 2010, in "Nemesis," he subjected his native New Jersey to a polio epidemic.

He was among greatest writers never to win the Nobel Prize. But he received virtually every other literary honor, including two National Book Awards, two National Book Critics Circle prizes and, in 1998, the Pulitzer for "American Pastoral." He was in his 20s when he won his first award and awed critics and fellow writers by producing some of his most acclaimed novels in his 60s and 70s, including "The Human Stain" and "Sabbath's Theater," a savage narrative of lust and mortality he considered his finest work.
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Mr_Truth · May 23, 2018

I well remember reading it as a college freshman all those many moons ago. It was beyond awesome.

Space_Time · Jun 21, 2018

Do we know why everyone is hanging themselves?

https://pagesix.com/2018/06/20/publicist-jeanine-pepler-dies-by-suicide-at-50/

Publicist Jeanine Pepler dies by suicide at 50

By Richard Johnson June 20, 2018 | 5:14pm

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Publicist Jeanine Pepler dies by suicide at 50

Jeanine Pepler PatrickMcMullan

Jeanine Pepler, the publicist who represented novelists Jay McInerney and Candace Bushnell, hanged herself Sunday night in her home in Sag Harbor, LI, taking her life the same way Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain did earlier this month. Sources say she was 50.

Pepler, who was raised and educated in Cape Town, South Africa, arrived in New York in 1996 and worked in public relations with the likes of Tina Brown, Michael Eisner, Julian Schnabel and Julie Taymor.

Friends said her body was discovered by her boyfriend, artist Steve Miller. “He is just devastated, as are we all,” said one. “She seemed to be doing great. They had a lot of plans for the future.”

Miller could not be reached for comment.

Pepler moved to Sag Harbor a few years ago and was running a new boutique agency, AKA Life. Her bio on the agency’s website states: “Her guilty pleasures include golf, white Burgundy, Betty’s Greek wraps and her daily early morning romp in the dog run with Violet, her French bulldog.”
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Space_Time · Jun 29, 2018

'The City on the Edge of Forever' guest-starred Joan Collins:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/science-fiction-writer-harlan-ellison-is-dead/

Science fiction writer Harlan Ellison is dead
Anthony Ha@anthonyha / 6 hours ago
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Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison, the 84-year-old author of some of science fiction’s best-known stories, has died. His death was announced on Twitter by Christine Valada.

In addition to short fiction, Ellison also wrote for the movies and TV, most notably penning “The City on the Edge of Forever” — he was vocal about his dissatisfaction with how his script was rewritten, but the filmed version is still generally considered the finest episode of any Star Trek series.

Ellison also made his mark as an editor, thanks to his 1967 anthology “Dangerous Visions” — while the stories’ sex and violence, as well as their stylistic experimentation, may no longer seem quite as groundbreaking, “Dangerous Visions” remains the definitive collection of New Wave science fiction.

He was also a teacher, most notably championing the work of “Kindred” author Octavia Butler after meeting her at the Clarion Workshop. And he experimented with other media as well, for example working on the computer game adaptation of his story “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” and even providing the voice of the game’s evil AI.

But the stories were his greatest accomplishment. Tales like “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ said the Ticktockman” (about a future where being late is the greatest crime) and “The Deathbird” (a man witnesses the dying Earth’s final moments) and “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes” (the saddest Las Vegas ghost story you’ll ever read) won him many awards, and have been anthologized many times. They show a pessimistic imagination at work — his most famous stories generally end in death or defeat — but thanks to the tremendous energy of Ellison’s writing, they’re never dour or boring.
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Space_Time · Aug 13, 2018

https://www.yahoo.com/news/v-naipaul-nobel-prize-winning-040228141.html
V.S. Naipaul, Nobel Prize-winning author, dies at 85
Associated Press Associated Press 23 hours ago
FILE - This 2001 file photo shows British author V.S. Naipaul in Salisbury, England. The Trinidad-born Nobel laureate whose celebrated writing and brittle, provocative personality drew admiration and revulsion in equal measures, died Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, at his London home, his family said. He was 85. (Chris Ison/PA via AP)
LONDON (AP) — V.S. Naipaul, the Trinidad-born Nobel laureate whose precise and lyrical writing in such novels as "A Bend in the River" and "A House for Mr. Biswas" and brittle, misanthropic personality made him one of the world's most admired and contentious writers, died at his London home, his family said. He was 85.

His wife, Nadira Naipaul, said he was "a giant in all that he achieved and he died surrounded by those he loved having lived a life which was full of wonderful creativity and endeavor."

His friend and fellow author Paul Theroux said that Naipaul had been in poor health prior to his death on Saturday, but had taken pride in having his work recognized.

"He will go down as one of the greatest writers of our time," Theroux told The Associated Press during a telephone interview, citing his mastery of writing about families and colonialism. "He also never wrote falsely. He was a scourge of anyone who used a cliché or an un-thought out sentence. He was very scrupulous about his writing, very severe, too."

Naipaul's fiction and nonfiction reflected his personal journey from Trinidad to London and various stops in developing countries. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001 "for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories."

In an extraordinary career spanning half a century, Naipaul traveled as a self-described "barefoot colonial" from his rural childhood to upper class England, and was hailed as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. From "A Bend in the River" to "The Enigma of Arrival" to "Finding the Centre," Naipaul's books explored colonialism and decolonization, exile and the struggles of the everyman in the developing world.

He was critical of colonialism, but set himself apart from any social movements. He saw himself as a realist, cured of illusions, his outlook defined by the famous opening words of "A Bend in the River" that became the title of a biography by Patrick French: "The world is what it is."

He was equally skeptical of religion and politics, of idealism of any kind, whether revolutionary uprisings or of quests for paradise such as Sir Walter Raleigh's search for the non-existent El Dorado.

"If you come from the New World, as I in large measure do, you see all the absurd fantasies people have taken there and the troubles they have wrought as a result," Naipaul told The Associated Press in 2000. "We were not given a proper history of the New World itself. This was not out of wickedness. It was out of ignorance, out of indifference, out of the feelings that the history of this very small island was not important. These aspects one had to learn and writing took me there. One didn't begin with knowledge. One wrote oneself into knowledge."

Naipaul prided himself on his candor, but he had a long history of offensive remarks. Among his widely quoted comments: He called India a "slave society," quipped that Africa has no future, and explained that Indian women wear a colored dot on their foreheads to say "my head is empty." He laughed off the 1989 fatwa by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie as "an extreme form of literary criticism."

The critic Terry Eagleton once said of Naipaul: "Great art, dreadful politics." Caribbean Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott complained that the author's prose was tainted by his "repulsion towards Negroes." C. L. R. James, a fellow Trinidadian writer, put it differently: Naipaul's views, he wrote, simply reflected "what the whites want to say but dare not."
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Space_Time · Aug 26, 2018

https://www.yahoo.com/news/neil-simon-broadways-master-comedy-dies-91-154646884.html

Neil Simon, Broadway's master of comedy, dies at 91
Associated Press Mark Kennedy, AP Entertainment Writer,Associated Press 27 minutes ago
NEW YORK (AP) -- Playwright Neil Simon, a master of comedy whose laugh-filled hits such as "The Odd Couple," ''Barefoot in the Park" and his "Brighton Beach" trilogy dominated Broadway for decades, has died. He was 91.

Simon died early Sunday of complications from pneumonia surrounded by family at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, said Bill Evans, his longtime friend and the Shubert Organization director of media relations.

In the second half of the 20th century, Simon was the American theater's most successful and prolific playwrights, often chronicling middle class issues and fears.

Starting with "Come Blow Your Horn" in 1961 and continuing into the next century, he rarely stopped working on a new play or musical. His list of credits is staggering.

The theater world mourned his death, with actor Josh Gad calling Simon "one of the primary influences on my life and career." Playwright Kristoffer Diaz said simply: "This hurts."

Simon's stage successes included "The Prisoner of Second Avenue," ''Last of the Red Hot Lovers," ''The Sunshine Boys," ''Plaza Suite," ''Chapter Two," ''Sweet Charity" and "Promises, Promises," but there were other plays and musicals, too, more than 30 in all. Many of his plays were adapted into movies and one, "The Odd Couple," even became a popular television series.

For seven months in 1967, he had four productions running at the same time on Broadway: "Barefoot in the Park"; "The Odd Couple"; "Sweet Charity"; and "The Star-Spangled Girl."

Even before he launched his theater career, he made history as one of the famed stable of writers for comedian Sid Caesar that also included Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner.

Simon was the recipient of four Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the Kennedy Center honors (1995), four Writers Guild of America Awards, an American Comedy Awards Lifetime Achievement honor and, in 1983, he even had a Broadway theater named after him when the Alvin was rechristened the Neil Simon Theatre.

In 2006, he won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which honors work that draws from the American experience. The previous year had seen a popular revival of "The Odd Couple," reuniting Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick after their enormous success in "The Producers" several years earlier.

In a 1997 interview with The Washington Post, Simon reflected on his success. "I know that I have reached the pinnacle of rewards. There's no more money anyone can pay me that I need. There are no awards they can give me that I haven't won. I have no reason to write another play except that I am alive and I like to do it," he said.
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Space_Time · May 19, 2019

https://www.thewrap.com/herman-wouk-pulitzer-prize-winning-author-of-the-caine-mutiny-dies-at-103/

Herman Wouk, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author of ‘The Caine Mutiny,’ Dies at 103

Many of his novels were adapted into movies and miniseries

Beatrice Verhoeven | May 17, 2019 @ 9:42 AM

Last Updated: May 17, 2019 @ 10:08 AM

herman wouk

Herman Wouk, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and author of novels including “The Caine Mutiny” and “The Winds of War,” has died. He was 103.

According to the Associated Press, he was just 10 days away from his 104th birthday. His literary agent, Amy Rennert, has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment, but she told the AP that he died in his sleep in Palm Springs, California.
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Space_Time · Jun 27, 2019

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/n...-selling-author-journalist-dies-at-91-1220487

Judith Krantz, Best-Selling Author and Journalist, Dies at 91

2:12 PM PDT 6/23/2019 by Lexy Perez

Harry Langdon

Judith Krantz

She wrote for publications including Macleans, McCalls, Ladies Home Journal and Cosmopolitan and penned such books as 'Scruples' and 'Princess Daisy.'

Judith Krantz, a best-selling author and journalist, died Saturday from natural causes in her Bel Air home surrounded by her family, friends and four dogs, her publicist John Tellem told The Hollywood Reporter. She was 91.
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Space_Time · Aug 6, 2019

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/nobel-laureate-toni-morrison-dead-134101517.html

Nobel laureate Toni Morrison dead at 88

HILLEL ITALIE HILLEL ITALIE 43 minutes ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, a pioneer and reigning giant of modern literature whose imaginative power in "Beloved," ''Song of Solomon" and other works transformed American letters by dramatizing the pursuit of freedom within the boundaries of race, has died at age 88.

Publisher Alfred A. Knopf announced that Morrison died Monday night at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. Morrison's family issued a statement through Knopf saying she died after a brief illness.
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