Joseph McElroy
| Joseph McElroy | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 21, 1930 New York City, United States |
| Occupation | Novelist, Professor |
| Nationality | American |
| Literary movement | Postmodern |
| Notable works |
Lookout Cartridge, Women and Men |
| Website | |
| www |
|
Joseph Prince McElroy (born August 21, 1930) is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. He is noted for writing difficult fiction.
Joseph McElroy was born on August 21, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York, the only child of Joseph Prince and Louise (née Lawrence) McElroy. McElroy's father was a scholarship student to Harvard University who majored in chemistry, but later worked as a stockbroker. He died when McElroy was 15 years old.
McElroy grew up in Brooklyn Heights. He graduated from Poly Prep Country Day School in 1947 and was given an Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award in 2007 from the school's Board of Governors. He attended Williams College, from where he earned a Bachelor's degree in 1951. The following year, he earned a Masters degree from Columbia University. He served in the Coast Guard from 1952–54, and then returned to Columbia to complete his Ph.D. in 1961.
In 1961, McElroy married Joan Leftwich, of London, in London. She is the daughter of Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jews. Her father, Joseph Leftwich, was a translator and anthologizer of Yiddish poetry. The McElroys' only child, a daughter Hanna, was born in 1967. McElroy assisted with the birth.
McElroy taught English at the University of New Hampshire (1956–62) and retired from teaching in 1995, after 31 years in the English department at Queens College, City University of New York.
McElroy's writing is often grouped with that of William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon, due to the encyclopedic quality of his novels, particularly the 1,192 pages of Women and Men (1987). His short fiction was first published in literary journals. Echoes of McElroy's work can be found in that of Don DeLillo and David Foster Wallace. McElroy's work often reflects a preoccupation with how science functions in American society;Exponential, a collection of essays published in Italy in 2003, collects science and technology journalism written primarily in the 1970s and 1980s for the New York Review of Books.
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