| Jonathan Carroll | |
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Jonathan Carroll at a reading of The Ghost in Love in San Francisco on October 20, 2008 |
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| Born | January 26, 1949 New York City |
| Occupation | Novelist, writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Genres | magic realist, slipstream, modern fantasy |
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www.jonathancarroll.com |
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Jonathan Samuel Carroll (born January 26, 1949) is an American author primarily known for novels, which can be characterized as magic realist, slipstream or modern fantasy. He also writes short stories.
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Carroll was born in New York City to Sidney Carroll, a film writer whose credits included The Hustler, and June Carroll (née Sillman), an actress and lyricist who appeared in numerous Broadway shows and two films. He is the half brother of composer Steve Reich and nephew of Broadway producer Leonard Sillman. His parents were Jewish but Carroll was raised in the Christian Science religion. A self-described "troubled teenager," he finished primary education at the Loomis School in Connecticut and graduated with honors from Rutgers University in 1971, marrying artist Beverly Schreiner in the same year. He relocated to Vienna, Austria a few years later and began teaching literature at the American International School, and has made his home in Austria ever since.
His first novel, The Land of Laughs (1980), is indicative of his general style and subject matter. Told through realistic first person narration, the novel concerns a young schoolteacher searching for meaning through researching the life of a favorite children's book author of his youth, which involves meeting the author's daughter. Everything seems fine until the dog begins talking to him, as the line between the fantasy world created by his research subject and the reality of the schoolteacher's life, while the reader begins to wonder just how much trust can be placed in this narrator. Subsequent novels would expand on these themes, but often contain unreliable narrators in a world where magic is viewed as natural. (One commentator claimed in The Times that "if he were a Latin American writer with a three-part name, his books would be described as magical-realist".)[1]
Carroll's short story, "Friend's Best Man", won the World Fantasy Award.[2] His novel, Outside the Dog Museum won the British Fantasy Award[3] and his collection of short stories won the Bram Stoker Award. The short story "Uh-Oh City" won the French Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire.[4] His short story "Home on the Rain" was chosen as one of the best stories of the year by the Pushcart Prize committee. Apart from the above honors, Carroll has gotten on the short-list for other World Fantasy Awards, the Hugo and British Fantasy Awards.