Synopses & Reviews
Cultural Writing. Biography and Memoir. Joanne Jacobson is a child of the Midwest and of suburbia. She grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in Evanston, Illinois, on the lakeshore north of Chicago, the child of children of Jewish immigrants. Her parents bought their first house there, their first garden and front lawn; she rode her first bicycle and learned to drive a car there. Her work as a writer and a teacher is rooted in that America of hope and change, and in the urge to remember. She has taught American studies, American literature, and creative writing at the University of Iowa, the University of Angers, France, Middlebury College and Yeshiva University, where she is Professor of English and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. "Magically, brilliantly, movingly, the particularity of Joanne Jacobson's language captures the universal truths of childhood. I devoured HUNGER ARTIST. It is a fresh and riveting memoir of the highest order"--Patricia Volk.
Review
"Magically, brilliantly, movingly, the particularity of Joanne Jacobson's language captures the universal truths of childhood. I devoured Hunger Artist. It is a fresh and riveting memoir of the highest order." -Patricia Volk, author of My Dearest Friends
"In her stunning debut memoir, Hunger Artist, Joanne Jacobson tells her story of growing up Jewish in a suburban world comprised not only of new houses and bright gardens and exuberant dreams for the future, but also of frustrated longings and unmet hungers. Her prose is at once gorgeous and meticulous..." -Richard McCann, author of Mother of Sorrows
Review
"At age five Jacobson's family moved to Chicago lakeside suburb in pursuit of the good life. Thus begins this heartfelt memoir that bounces from the thrill of a first bicycle, searching out the right motel on a family vacation, stealing treats and secret binges...all the stories are beautifully written..." -Sandy Amazeen, from Monsters and Critics.
Synopsis
Hunger Artist: A Suburban Childhood by Joanne Jacobson
Synopsis
readings, conferences, publicist working on this book, Jewish Centers, college campuses
Synopsis
Hunger Artist: Childhood in Suburbia
Synopsis
A book of memories of growing up Jewish in the Midwest suburbs that proves itself literature of the highest order.
"Joanne Jacobson's memoir of postwar suburbia, stories rendered in incandescent images and illuminating insights, unflinchingly depicts life's insatiable hungers. The book's multiple facets leave the reader delighted, disturbed, but ultimately, completely fulfilled."
-Faye Moskowitz, author of A Leak in the Heart and Peace in the House: Tales from a Yiddish Kitchen
About the Author
Though for the past twenty-five years she has lived in New York City and in rural Vermont, Joanne Jacobson is a child of the Midwest and of suburbia. She grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in Evanston, Illinois, on the lakeshore north of Chicago, the child of children of Jewish immigrants. Her creative nonfiction and essays have appeared in The Nation, New England Review, Massachusetts. She has taught American studies, American literature, and creative writing at the University of Iowa, at Middlebury College, and at Yeshiva University, where she is currently Professor of English and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.
Table of Contents
Hunger Artist: A Suburban Childhood
Prelude
Part One
Dreaming in Things
Cheeseburger
Junior Masters of the Universe
Motel
Part Two
Family Trees
Drugstore
Nineteen Sixty-Three
The Narrow Bridge
Hunger Artist
The Invisible World
Part Three
Cars and Drivers
My Father, Reading
Sacrifice
Unbinding
Garden Days
Natural History