Mona Simpson
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- For the fictional character from The Simpsons, see Mona Simpson (The Simpsons).
Mona Simpson (born June 14, 1957 in Green Bay, Wisconsin) is a novelist and essayist. She was born to an American mother, Joanne Carole Schieble, and a Syrian father, political science professor Abdulfattah John Jandali. She is the younger sister of Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computer. Jobs was given up for adoption as a baby by his then-unmarried mother; the two siblings only met each other as adults.
She attended the University of California at Berkeley, where she studied with Jackson Burgess, Earl Thompson, and Thom Gunn. Having received her B.A. in English from Berkeley in 1979, she attended Columbia University where she received an M.F.A. She worked for Paris Review and also for Cosmopolitan during this period.
At Columbia she began her first published novel, Anywhere But Here, the story of a turbulent mother-daughter relationship, which became a bestseller when it was published by Knopf in 1986. Anywhere But Here was followed by The Lost Father and A Regular Guy, a fictional portrait of her brother. She has since published the novel Off Keck Road.
Although Mona Simpson's books are presented as works of fiction, she draws deeply upon personal experience to the point where large portions of her novels are transparently autobiographical. This is believed to be the case in A Regular Guy, which is heavily inspired by her relationship with her brother, Steve Jobs. When asked to compare similarities between Steve Jobs and Tom Owens, the main character, Mona stated that to do so would be unfair, further saying that "There is some biographical truth to what I do, but I want the license to make things up--which I do." Steve similarly dismissed such notions when asked if he felt betrayed by his sister, stating that "About 25 percent of it is totally me," although people close to Steve have begged to differ with that estimation. As time passed, Mona eventually admitted to a reporter doing a profile on Steve that the book had ended her close relationship with him, indicating that he did indeed feel betrayed.[1]
Mona Simpson is also a contributor to anthologies and essay collections. She currently lives in Santa Monica, California with her husband Richard Appel and two children, Gabriel and Grace.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Deutschman, Alan (2001). The Second Coming of Steve Jobs. Broadway. ISBN 0-7679-0433-8. pg 77, 225-227
