Background
Madison Smartt Bell was born on August 1, 1957, in Nashville, Tennessee, to Henry Denmark, an attorney, and Allen Wigginton Bell, a farmer.
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, United States
Bell is a graduate of Princeton University.
7916 Williamson Rd, Roanoke, VA 24019, United States
Bell studied at Hollins University.
(An “exhilirating” novel of domestic terrorism in the grit...)
An “exhilirating” novel of domestic terrorism in the gritty streets of 1980s New York from the National Book Award–finalist and author of Straight Cut (The New Yorker).
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0069W0I5K/?tag=2022091-20
2011
(From the National Book Award–finalist: This “brilliant” s...)
From the National Book Award–finalist: This “brilliant” story collection exploring the lives of dispossessed Americans is “one of his best achievements” (The Washington Post). Thematically focused on hard-luck characters trapped by desperate circumstances, Bell once again showcases his range and versatility in these eleven deeply felt stories. Whether in the Deep South or the grim Northeast; burdened with unspoken hurts or challenged by the harsh vicissitudes of contemporary life, Bell’s characters are drawn with clear-eyed compassion and dignity.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0069W0HXI/?tag=2022091-20
2011
(Tracy Bateman eeks out a meager existence as a freelance ...)
Tracy Bateman eeks out a meager existence as a freelance film editor. Other than alcohol, his closest companion is a dog dying of cancer. And his wife, Lauren, is off with his friend Kevin, who’s also his occasional employer. Prospects are grim, but on the day Tracy decides to relieve his dog of his misery, Kevin calls with a job offer. The pay is double what it should be and would take him to Rome. Tracy suspects there’s a side job involving drugs, something he and Kevin have dabbled in before with minimal success. But when Lauren shows up with a suitcase full of cash, he sends her home and decides to finish the job on his own. It will take all of his skill to not end up on the cutting floor.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0069W0IF0/?tag=2022091-20
1986
(In this novel, Macrae, an AWOL Southerner, and Charlie, a...)
In this novel, Macrae, an AWOL Southerner, and Charlie, an unstable ex-con, forge a dangerous partnership soon after meeting in New York City. Together they embark on a small-time crime spree that eventually leads them to flee for Macrae’s back country homeland. There, the relationship sours and violence erupts.
https://www.amazon.com/Save-Louis-Contemporary-American-Fiction-ebook/dp/B0069W0I1Y/?tag=2022091-20
1993
(This first installment of the epic Haitian trilogy brings...)
This first installment of the epic Haitian trilogy brings to life a decisive moment in the history of race, class, and colonialism. Pulsing with brilliant detail, All Soul’s Rising provides a visceral sense of the pain, terror, confusion, and triumph of revolution.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001J1S7CW/?tag=2022091-20
1995
(The only taste of life Jesse has known in his twenty year...)
The only taste of life Jesse has known in his twenty years is bitter: his mother disappeared before he could talk, his father never got over being left, and Jesse’s presence seems only to kindle his father’s anger. Anything Goes tells Jesse’s story over the course of a year, during which he finds his life slowly being tempered by the unexpected: by a dad who wants to make up and be part of Jesse’s life; by a female lead singer who suddenly makes the band sound a lot better than they have any right to be; and by the confidence Jesse begins to feel in his own musical talent.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375421254/?tag=2022091-20
2002
(The first biography in English in over sixty years of the...)
The first biography in English in over sixty years of the man who led the Haitian Revolution, this is an engaging reexamination of the controversial, paradoxical leader.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002CK8VJI/?tag=2022091-20
2007
(The Stone that the Builder Refused is the final volume of...)
The Stone that the Builder Refused is the final volume of Madison Smartt Bell’s masterful trilogy about the Haitian Revolution - the first successful slave revolution in history.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000XUDGUS/?tag=2022091-20
2007
(Continuing his epic trilogy of the Haitian slave uprising...)
Continuing his epic trilogy of the Haitian slave uprising, Madison Smartt Bell’s Master of the Crossroads delivers a stunning portrayal of Toussaint Louverture, former slave, military genius and liberator of Haiti, and his struggle against the great European powers to free his people in the only successful slave revolution in history.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000XUAE8U/?tag=2022091-20
2007
(With a writer’s keen eye, a longtime resident’s familiari...)
With a writer’s keen eye, a longtime resident’s familiarity, and his own sly wit, acclaimed novelist Madison Smartt Bell leads us on a walk through his adopted hometown of Baltimore, a city where crab cakes, Edgar Allan Poe, hair extensions, and John Waters movies somehow coexist.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000W9672E/?tag=2022091-20
2007
(A powerful new novel about Nathan Bedford Forrest, the mo...)
A powerful new novel about Nathan Bedford Forrest, the most reviled, celebrated, and legendary of Civil War generals. With the same eloquence, dramatic energy, and grasp of history that marked his award-winning fictional trilogy of the Haitian Revolution, Madison Smartt Bell now turns his gaze to America’s Civil War. We see Forrest on and off the battlefield, in less familiar but no less revealing moments of his life; we see him treating his slaves humanely even as he fights to ensure their continued enslavement; we see his knack for keeping his enemy unsettled, his instinct for the unexpected, and his relentless stamina. As Devil's Dream moves back and forth in time, a vivid portrait comes into focus: a rough, fierce man with a life full of contradictions.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002T18VE0/?tag=2022091-20
2009
(Antoine Lavoisier reinvented chemistry, overthrowing the ...)
Antoine Lavoisier reinvented chemistry, overthrowing the long-established principles of alchemy and inventing an entirely new terminology, one still in use by chemists. Madison Smartt Bell’s enthralling narrative reads like a race to the finish line, as the very circumstances that enabled Lavoisier to secure his reputation as the father of modern chemistry - a considerable fortune and social connections with the likes of Benjamin Franklin - also caused his glory to be cut short by the French Revolution.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004FEG31M/?tag=2022091-20
2010
(After the horrors of Vietnam, Thomas Laidlaw returns to h...)
After the horrors of Vietnam, Thomas Laidlaw returns to his home in rural Tennessee where he spends his days raising sheep and growing vegetables. At night he likes to roam the quiet countryside and practice his banjo, revelling in the roots music he finds so grounding. Over time, he resumes his friendship with Rodney Redmon, a fellow vet and childhood friend scarred not only by the wages of war, but also by the deep wounds of racism.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0069W0HOW/?tag=2022091-20
2011
(Mae, a blackjack dealer in a Las Vegas casino, spends her...)
Mae, a blackjack dealer in a Las Vegas casino, spends her free time wandering the desert with a rifle, or sitting in her trailer obsessively watching replays of an old lover escaping the wreckage of 9/11. What she sees in those images is different from what the rest of us would see. She revels in the pure anarchy, thrills at the destruction. These images recall memories of a childhood marked by unthinkable abuse, of her drift into a cult that committed the most shocking crime of the '60s, of her life since then as a feral and wary outsider, caught in a swirl of events at once personal, political, mythic.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004P8JPRC/?tag=2022091-20
2011
(Deploying a seemingly unlimited range of subject and sett...)
Deploying a seemingly unlimited range of subject and setting, Bell’s collection of stories are as inventive as they are revelatory. From a monastic Chinese mouse who ponders his lot in life to the aching frustrations of a former drug addict attempting to connect to her son, Bell continues to refine his renowned craft on the characters who fall under his compassionate gaze.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0069W0HTC/?tag=2022091-20
2011
Madison Smartt Bell was born on August 1, 1957, in Nashville, Tennessee, to Henry Denmark, an attorney, and Allen Wigginton Bell, a farmer.
Bell is a graduate of Princeton and Hollins Universities.
Madison Smartt Bell published his first novel, The Washington Square Ensemble, when he was twenty-five. He has since published three collections of short stories, two biographies, fifteen novels and the fiction-writing textbook Narrative Design and has contributed fiction and reviews to many anthologies, newspapers and magazines, including Harper’s and the New York Times.
Bell has taught fiction writing at the Poetry Center of the 92nd Street YHMA, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the Writing Seminars of Johns Hopkins University, and at Goucher College since 1984.
(From the National Book Award–finalist: This “brilliant” s...)
2011(An “exhilirating” novel of domestic terrorism in the grit...)
2011(Continuing his epic trilogy of the Haitian slave uprising...)
2007(With a writer’s keen eye, a longtime resident’s familiari...)
2007(The only taste of life Jesse has known in his twenty year...)
2002(Mae, a blackjack dealer in a Las Vegas casino, spends her...)
2011(From the Haiti of 200 years ago in his most recent, highl...)
1998(The Stone that the Builder Refused is the final volume of...)
2007(The first biography in English in over sixty years of the...)
2007(Antoine Lavoisier reinvented chemistry, overthrowing the ...)
2010(After the horrors of Vietnam, Thomas Laidlaw returns to h...)
2011(The National Book Award–finalist movingly examines the li...)
2011(In this novel, Macrae, an AWOL Southerner, and Charlie, a...)
1993(This first installment of the epic Haitian trilogy brings...)
1995(Deploying a seemingly unlimited range of subject and sett...)
2011(A powerful new novel about Nathan Bedford Forrest, the mo...)
2009(Tracy Bateman eeks out a meager existence as a freelance ...)
1986Quotations: "Out of ennui, I wrote my first real short story."
Bell is a member of the PEN American Center, Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Poets and Writers, Phi Beta Kappa.
On June 15, 1985, Bell married Elizabeth Spires, a poet. The couple has a daughter, Celia.