Thomas Berger (author, 1924)

Thomas Louis Berger (born July 20, 1924 in Cincinnati , Ohio , † July 13, 2014 in Nyack , New York ) was an American writer .

Life and work

Thomas Berger served in Europe with the US Army before studying in Cincinnati and Columbia University . He then worked as a librarian and journalist before publishing his first novel Crazy in Berlin in 1958 , which he later continued with Reinhart in Love (1962), Vital Parts (1970) and Reinhart's Women (1981). The series of novels follows the fate of the soldier Carlo Reinhart with biting humor, whose optimism about life is perishing because of his corrupt environment.

As in the Reinhart novels the American middle-class society, so Berger took the genre of the Western with Little Big Man (1964) and The Return of Little Big Man (1999) as well as that of the crime novels or spy novels with Who Is Teddy Villanova? (1977) and Nowhere (1985) in satirical form.

Other novels shed light on taboo subjects in American society: Killing Time (1967) and Sneaky People (1975) deal with the violence that shines through using a mass murderer and a man who wants to kill his wife. The Houseguest (1988) is a dark comedy about a visitor who turns into a threat.

Berger took up the classic theme of Oresty in Orrie's Story (1990); Arthur Rex (1978) is a modern version of Arthurian legend , and Robert Crews is a Robinsonad .

A trip to the Science Fiction provides Regiment of Women is (1973), a set into the 22nd century satire about a too far gone gender equality. Adventures of the Artificial Woman (2004) also illuminates the role of women, here on the basis of the career of a lifelike female robot through the world of prostitution, pornography, the film industry and politics.

Works (selection)

Novels

• Carlo Reinhart cycle
  • Crazy in Berlin. A novel . Delcorte Press, New York 1981, ISBN 0-440-01131-0 (reprinted by EA New York 1958).
  • Reinhart in love. A Novel. Delacorte Press, New York 1981, ISBN 0-440-07343-X (reprinted by EA New York 1962).
  • Vital parts. A novel . Little Brown, New York 1990, ISBN 0-316-09225-8 (reprinted by EA New York 1971).
  • Reinhart's Women . Delacorte Press, New York 1981, ISBN 0-440-07408-8 .
• Little Big Man cycle
  • Little Big Man (1964). Verlag Neues Leben , Berlin 1977, license no. 303 (305/240/77), order no. 642,539 7; also: the last hero. A Superwestern ("Little Big Man", 1964). Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-462-01698-9 .
  • The Return of Little Big Man , Little Brown, Boston, Mass. 1999, ISBN 0-316-09844-2 .
• Killing Time or the Way to Kill ("Killing Time," 1967). Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt / M. 1972, ISBN 3-436-01528-8 .
• Regiment of Women. A novel . Little Brown, New York 1991, ISBN 0-316-09242-8 (reprinted from New York 1973 edition).
• Sneaky people . Simon & Schuster, New York 2005, ISBN 0-7432-5795-2 (reprint of the New York 1975 edition).
• Who is Teddy Villanova? A novel . Delta Books, New York 1989, ISBN 0-385-29149-3 (reprint of the New York 1977 edition).
• The secrets of Camelot. Roman ("Arthur Rex. A Legendary Novel", 1978). Heyne, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-453-02314-5 .
• Neighbors. A novel . Delacorte, New York 1980, ISBN 0-440-06556-9 .
• The Feud. A novel . Little Brown, Boston, Mass. 1983, ISBN 0-316-11600-9 .
• Nowhere . Delacorte Press, New York 1985, ISBN 0-385-29401-8 .
• Being Invisible . Little Brown, Boston, Mass. 1987, ISBN 0-316-09158-8 .
• The Houseguest. A novel . Little Brown, Boston, Mass. 1988, ISBN 0-316-09163-4 .
• Changing the past. A novel . Little Brown, Boston, Mass. 1989, ISBN 0-316-09149-9 .
• Orrie's story. A novel . Little Brown, Boston, Mass. 1990, ISBN 0-316-09220-7 .
• Monday 9.10. Roman ("Meeting Evil", 1992). Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1994, ISBN 3-8218-0246-4 .
• Robert Crews . Morrow Books, New York 1994, ISBN 0-688-11920-4 .
• Suspects. A novel . Morrow Books, New York 1996, ISBN 0-688-11925-5 .
• Best friends. A novel . Simon & Schuster, New York 2003, ISBN 0-7432-4183-5 .
• Adventure of an artificial woman. Roman ("Adventures of the Artificial Woman", 2004). Verlag Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-86615-933-4 .

stories

• Granted Wishes. Three stories . Lord John Press, Northridge, Calif. 1984, ISBN 0-935716-33-5 .

Film adaptations

• Arthur Penn (Director): Little Big Man . 1970.
• John G. Avildsen (Director): The Crazy Neighbors . 1981.
• Chris Fisher (Director :) Meeting Evil . 2012

literature

• James Bense: Thomas Berger: Primary and Secondary Works . In: Bulletin of Bibliography 51: 2, 1994, pp. 169-80.
• Landon Brooks: Thomas Berger . Twayne, Boston 1989, ISBN 0-8057-7540-4 .
• Landon Brooks: Understanding Thomas Berger . University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC 2010, ISBN 978-1-57003-828-0 .
• Monika Essl: The reception of Arthurian material in English and American literature of the 20th century by Thomas Berger, Marion Zimmer Bradley, EA Robinson, Mary Stewart and TH White (= Salzburg English and American Studies 22). Mellen Books, Lewiston, NY 1995, ISBN 0-7734-1243-3 .
• David W. Madden (Ed.): Critical Essays on Thomas Berger . Prentice Hall, New York 1995, ISBN 0-7838-0029-0 .
• Michael Porsche: The meta-western. Studies on EL Doctorow, Thomas Berger and Larry McMurtry (= work on American studies 8). Verlag Die Blaue Eule, Paderborn 1991, ISBN 3-89206-430-X .

Web links

• Literature by and about Thomas Berger in the catalog of the German National Library
• Thomas Berger in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Short biography and reviews of works by Thomas Berger at perlentaucher.de
• Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, William McDonald: Thomas Berger, 'Little Big Man' Author, Is Dead at 89 . Obituary in The New York Times, July 21, 2014