"If you drive a car in a major city, you know that the success of an evening has nothing to do with the charm of your date, the taste of the food, or the brilliance of the theater. It's all about the quality of your parking space. With Tepper Isn't Going Out, Calvin Trillin has written a novel that's as delightful as finding a free spot in Times Square." The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire CSM review)

"So deft and so deeply kind is Trillin that this send-up of Mayor Giuliani, written before the September disaster, instead of collapsing like a dead souffle, survives high and light....Sweetly silly and very wise. This is what we want to put back in place when the city pulls out of the nightmare." Kirkus Reviews

"With Tepper Isn't Going Out, [Trillin has] written his best fiction — a Capraesque fantasy of the unwitting underdog winning out (with Mel Brooks, say, subbing for Jimmy Stewart in the title role). It's a gentle vision: a valentine to undaunted individuality. This fine, winsome book is a reminder of how we may prevail in small ways." Paul Evans, Book Magazine

"Trillin's deliciously wry little anecdote of a novel is a fable for our times." San Jose Mercury News

"Rewarding...An ode to New Yorkers and their oddities, Tepper Isn't Going Out is a gentle book that conceals a wise and biting look at twenty-first-century society." Rocky Mountain News

CALVIN TRILLIN

Calvin Trillin has been acclaimed in fields of writing that are remarkably diverse. A staff writer for The New Yorker for forty years, Trillin has been called “perhaps the finest reporter in America.” His antic commentary on the American scene and his books chronicling his adventures as a “happy eater” have earned him renown as “a classic American humorist.”

Trillin was born and raised in Kansas City, MO. He graduated from Yale in 1957, served in the army and then joined Time magazine. After a year covering the South from the Atlanta bureau, he became a writer for Time in New York.

In 1963, he became a staff writer for The New Yorker. From 1978 to 1985, Trillin was a columnist for The Nation, writing what USA Today called “simply the funniest regular column in journalism.” From 1986 through 1995, the column was syndicated to newspapers. His columns have been collected in five books: Uncivil Liberties; With All Disrespect, If You Can’t Say Something Nice (1987), Enough’s Enough, and Too Soon to Tell. From 1996 to 2001, Trillin did a column for Time.

Since 1990, Trillin has written a piece of comic verse weekly for The Nation. In 1994, he published Deadline Poet, his account of being a commentator-in-rhyme on the news of the day.

Trillin’s books have included three comic novels, a collection of short stories, a travel book and an account of the desegregation of the University of Georgia. His three antic books on eating — American Fried, Alice Let’s Eat and Third Helpings — were compiled in 1994 into a single volume called The Tummy Trilogy. His memoirs include Remembering Denny and Messages from My Father, both New York Times bestsellers.

Trillin lives in New York City.