James Wilcox
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| James Wilcox | |
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| Born | 1949 (age 58–59) Hammond, Louisiana, United States |
| Occupation | novelist, professor |
| Genres | Literary fiction |
James Wilcox (b. 1949 in Hammond, Louisiana) is an American novelist and a professor at LSU in Baton Rouge.
Wilcox is the author of eight comic novels set in, or featuring characters from, the fictional town of Tula Springs, Louisiana. Wilcox's first book Modern Baptists (1983) remains his best known work. His other novels are North Gladiola (1985), Miss Undine's Living Room (1987), Sort of Rich (1989), Polite Sex (1991), Guest of a Sinner (1993), Plain and Normal (1998), Heavenly Days (2003), and Hunk City (2007).
Wilcox's books have rarely been out of print but he has yet to write a bestseller. His work has received consistently fine reviews, although reader's opinions appear to be mixed judging by amazon.com. His books are very funny, a little sad, too, moving at their own special southern pace. The writing is very clever, with an inescapable rhythm to it, poetical without being showy. All his characters are utterly believable, although almost always eccentrics and a little bit misfits. It is very easy to imagine how their lives go further on, once the book is closed. They're all very real, and what's more, near. People who like his books, love them unconditionally.
Wilcox is also the author of three short stories that were published in The New Yorker between 1981 and 1986, three of only four short stories that the author has published. He has written book reviews for The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, and two pieces for ELLE. He was the subject of an article by James B. Stewart in The New Yorker's 1994 summer fiction issue; entitled "Moby Dick in Manhattan", it detailed his struggle to survive as a writer devoted purely to literary fiction.
Wilcox, a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1986, has held the Robert Penn Warren Professorship at Louisiana State University since September 2004. He is also the director of the university's creative writing program.
