Background
Shields, David Jonathan was born on July 22, 1956 in Seattle, Washington, United States. Son of Milton and Hannah (Bloom).
("Shields's lucid prose succinctly illuminates the larger ...)
"Shields's lucid prose succinctly illuminates the larger context of Jaffe's life. . . . It's even better at capturing the small picture."--Timothy Hunter, Cleveland Plain Dealer In Handbook for Drowning, Walter Jaffe grows up in a family obsessed with social justice; Walter fixates on his own mortality. The novel's pointillistic structure reflects the gap between the grief Walter feels for his dying mother and the impersonal rationality he's been taught to practice."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679401113/?tag=2022091-20
( What does it mean to construct a self? What does it mea...)
What does it mean to construct a self? What does it mean to turn your life into a narrative? What’s gained? What’s lost? What lies inevitably get told? What deeper truths are reached or at least reached for? Enough About You has no answers to these questions, but it frames and asks these questions in a much more overt, honest, precise, and provocative way than any book has attempted yet, and tries to do so while also delivering the pleasures of narrative, of memoir, of search-for-self. With moving and often hilarious candor, Shields explores the connections between fiction and nonfiction, stuttering and writing, literary forms and literary contents, art and life; he confronts bad reviews of his earlier books; he examines why he read a college girlfriend’s journal; he raids a wide range of cultural figures (from Rousseau, Nabokov, and Salinger to Bill Murray, Adam Sandler, and Bobby Knight) for what they have to tell him about himself. Enough About You is a book about David Shields. But it is also a terrifically engrossing exploration and exploitation of self-reflection, self-absorption, full-blown narcissism, and the impulse to write about oneself. In a world awash with memoirs and tell-alls, Shields has created something unique: he invites the reader into his mind as he turns his life into a narrative.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593762194/?tag=2022091-20
(Washington State Book Award, 1990 Silver Medal, Commonwe...)
Washington State Book Award, 1990 Silver Medal, Commonwealth Club of California Book Awards, 1990 From the moment his mother tries unsuccessfully to coax him into saying "Philadelphia," Jeremy Zorn's life is framed by his unwieldy attempts at articulation. Through family rituals with his word-obsessed parents and sister, failed first love, an ill-fated run for class president, as the only Jewish boy on an otherwise all-black basketball team, all of the passages of Jeremy's life are marked in some way by his stutter and his wildly off-the-mark attempts at a cure. It is only when he enters college and learns his strong-willed mother is dying that he realizes all languages, when used as hiding places for the heart, are dead ones.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1555972748/?tag=2022091-20
Shields, David Jonathan was born on July 22, 1956 in Seattle, Washington, United States. Son of Milton and Hannah (Bloom).
Bachelor in British and American Literature, Brown University, 1978. Master of Fine Arts in Fiction, University Iowa, 1980.
Visiting assistant professor St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York, 1985-1988. Assistant professor University Washington, Seattle, 1988-1992, associate professor, 1992-1997, professor department English, since 1997. Member faculty Warren Wilson College low-residency Master of Fine Arts program for writers, Asheville, North Carolina, since 1996.
Guest speaker and guest lecturer in field. Numerous readings.
( What does it mean to construct a self? What does it mea...)
(Washington State Book Award, 1990 Silver Medal, Commonwe...)
("Shields's lucid prose succinctly illuminates the larger ...)
Member Modern Language Association, Authors Guild, Writers Guild, Poets and Writers, Associate Writing Programs, Poets, Editors, Novelists.
Son of; married Laurie McCallum, September 1, 1990. 1 child, Natalie McCallum.