Christian Bauman
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Christian Bauman (b. June 15, 1970, Easton, Pennsylvania) is an American novelist, essayist, and lyricist. He lives near New Hope, Pennsylvania. His short essays have appeared semi-regularly on National Public Radio's All Things Considered since 2003. Bauman's third novel, titled In Hoboken, is scheduled for release spring 2008. He is arguably best known for his 2002 novel The Ice Beneath You (Bauman has said in an interview that while he is proud of his first book, he does not consider it his strongest writing; he referred to it as a "clearing of the throat").
Christian Bauman's first two novels, The Ice Beneath You (Simon & Schuster, 2002) and Voodoo Lounge (Simon & Schuster, 2005) dealt with the lives of the young, lower-middle-class enlistees who populate the US Army. Writer Chris Hedges called The Ice Beneath You "one of the finest books on life in the American army." Set in both Somalia and various parts of the USA including San Francisco, it chronicles the first year home of a young soldier named Benjamin Jones after a tragedy in Somalia. Voodoo Lounge details the American invasion of Haiti in 1994 from the points of view of a young female sergeant, a Haitian-American intelligence officer, and an addict/former soldier now serving as the engineer of a missionary ship in Port au Prince. The book deals heavily with issues including HIV/AIDS, women in the military, and the complicated relationship between the US and Haiti. National Book Award-winning novelist Robert Stone praised Bauman's writing in Voodoo Lounge, declaring "the prose in Voodoo Lounge reverberates in the white space around it." Bauman's first two novels are among the very small group of war-based fiction produced by a Generation X novelist.
On National Public Radio, the majority of his commentaries for All Things Considered have been about the four years he was a soldier, but he has also written about his origins as a writer, his daughters, and his time as a touring musician.
As a child, Christian Bauman began school in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, moving to Quakertown, New Jersey when he was in the fourth grade. He remained there until he left home at age 17. He graduated from North Hunterdon High School near Clinton, New Jersey, in 1988, and did not attend college. His daughter Kristina was also born in 1988. He has a second daughter, Fiona, born in 1999.
Bauman's family traveled a great deal around North America and Europe when he was a child. The family spent a year in India in 1983-84, when Bauman would have been in 8th grade. Bauman was raised by his stepfather (a professor) and mother (a physician); interviews suggest he may be estranged from them.
The subject matter of Christian Bauman's first two novels was drawn from his experiences as a US Army soldier. He joined the army in 1991, at age 21, and remained in for four years. He was a member of the small army boat field (Army Waterborne), and served in Somalia in 1992-93 (on an LCM-8), and Haiti in 1994 (on the LSV-1). In both cases, Bauman was among the first American troops in the deployment -- within the opening weeks of the Somalia mission, and within the first hour of the Haiti occupation. Following his honorable discharge in 1995, Bauman spent the next few years writing and playing guitar on the North American folk circuit, both alone and as part of the group Camp Hoboken (which also included folksingers Gregg Cagno and Linda Sharar in its ranks). Christian was frequently an opener for acts including Pete Seeger, Jack Hardy, John Gorka, Odetta, Cheryl Wheeler, and Livingston Taylor, at venues like Godfrey Daniels, Passim, Eddie's Attic, The Iron Horse, and Freight & Salvage. (This time period apparently serves as the basis of Bauman's next novel, In Hoboken.)
Bauman wrote both songs and short stories during the 1990s. Some of the songs (including one called "Kismaayo," written in Mogadishu and mailed back to Jack Hardy, who then performed it at the Bottom Line) are in the Smithsonian's Folkways Collection of New York's Fast Folk recordings. None of Bauman's short stories from the time have been published. A few small sections of The Ice Beneath You were written in Somalia during Bauman's deployment there, but the majority was penned in 1999-2000; the novel was purchased by Simon & Schuster in 2001.
[edit] Novels
- In Hoboken (Melville House Publishing, 2008)
- Voodoo Lounge (Simon & Schuster, 2005)
- The Ice Beneath You (Simon & Schuster, 2002)
[edit] Writing in Collections and Other Books
- Living On the Edge of the World: New Jersey Writers Take On the Garden State (Touchstone, 2007); essay titled "The Commute (Hoboken 1996)"
- Not Like I'm Jealous Or Anything: The Jealousy Book (young adult) (Delacorte, 2006); short story written with daughter Kristina Bauman titled "Everyone's Green About Something"
- Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times (Basic Books, 2005); essay titled "Not Fade Away"
- Bauman is credited as a contributor to What Every Person Should Know About War by Chris Hedges (Free Press, 2003)
