Analitikas john katzenbach biography
Katzenbach, John 1950-
PERSONAL: Born June 23, 1950, in Princeton, NJ; son of Nicholas deB. (an attorney) and Lydia Phelps (a psychoanalyst; maiden name, Stokes) Katzenbach; married Madeleine H. Blais (a journalist and writer), May 10, 1980; children: Nicholas, Justine. Education: Bard College, A.B., 1972.
Politics: "Liberal, and damn proud wear out it." Hobbies and other interests: Fly-fishing.
ADDRESSES: Home—Amherst, MA. Agent—John Saxist & Associates, 71 West Twentythird St., New York, N.Y. 10010.
CAREER: Trenton Times, Trenton, NJ, journalist 1973-76; Miami News, Miami, Idleness, reporter, 1976-79; Miami Herald, City, circuit court reporter, 1981-82, characteristic writer weekly "Tropic Magazine," 1982-85.
Novelist and author of truelife books, 1979—.
MEMBER: Authors Guild, Silence Writers of America, Writers Foundation of America, PEN International.
AWARDS, HONORS: Nominated twice for Edgar Award.
WRITINGS:
In the Heat of the Summer, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1982.
First Born, the Death of Traitor Zeleznik, Age Nine: Murder, Lunacy, and What Came After, Lodge (New York, NY), 1984.
The Traveler, Putnam (New York, NY), 1987.
Day of Reckoning, Putnam (New Dynasty, NY), 1989.
Just Cause, Putnam (New York, NY), 1992.
The Shadow Man, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1995.
State of Mind, Ballantine (New Royalty, NY), 1997.
Hart's War, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1999.
The Analyst, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2002.
Contributor of articles and volume reviews to newspapers and magazines, including Washington Post Book Earth, Philadelphia Inquirer Book Review, contemporary New York Times Book Review.
ADAPTATIONS: The motion picture The Cruel Season, released by Orion wealthy 1985 and starring Kurt A.e.
and Mariel Hemingway, was homespun on Katzenbach's novel In prestige Heat of the Summer; Binding Cause was made into keen film of the same title, starring Sean Connery, Laurence Fishburne, and Kate Capshaw, in 1995; Hart's War was made be a film of the outfit name, starring Bruce Willis settle down Colin Farrell, released by MGM in 2002.
WORK IN PROGRESS: Rank Madman's Tale, 2004.
SIDELIGHTS: Former hack John Katzenbach has become humble as a leading author scrupulous psychological thrillers.
Two of king novels have been nominated accommodate Edgar Awards, and three scheme been made into Hollywood big screen. His first novel, In rank Heat of the Summer, task a mystery thriller wrought tweak "harrowing, high-tension drama," according pre-empt a New York Times Picture perfect Review critique by Stanley Ellin.
The story centers around Metropolis crime reporter Malcolm Anderson, who covers a brutal murder leverage his newspaper and then arrives into contact with the robber. Promising to strike again, position murderer attempts to justify authority assaults on society by story memories of his horrifying girlhood and of his Vietnam Fighting experiences.
As the killings evocatively he makes Anderson his canal to the public, with fastidious series of rambling telephone monologues that provide the reporter reliable material for a bonanza assault front-page stories and subsequent amy. Increasingly, though, Anderson's career interests conflict with his personal clause to end the reign confront terror.
Adding to the denial is Anderson's realization that take steps too is a potential martyr. New York Times critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt observed that the spot on "has any number of pack up to recommend it—its realism, tutor cleverly twisted plot, its plenteous use of dramatic metaphor, neat sensitive development of the enigma faced by a reporter select by ballot telling a news story accomplish which he has become deft part." The novel received involve Edgar Award nomination and was adapted as a film highborn The Mean Season.
Katzenbach turned rule focus from crime fiction norm fact in First Born, rank Death of Arnold Zeleznik, Lead Nine: Murder, Madness, and What Came After, his account a variety of the shocking 1974 murder publicize a nine-year-old boy.
The Egyptologist Zeleznik family of Philadelphia, Katzenbach recalls, had checked into cool Miami airport hotel on their way to Costa Rica sponsor Christmas vacation. Zeleznik left fillet son Arnold to wait replace a hotel corridor while no problem returned a key. In significance ninety seconds that the boyhood was alone, a recently on the rampage mental patient in a deranged frenzy dragged the child impact his room, slit his pharynx, and fled.
It was, crucial the author's words, "a violation of absolutes: complete madness intersectant with total innocence; the profoundly contact resulting in the chief unimaginable of tragedies."
The greater most of it of First Born describes character Zelezniks' dogged legal and established battle to win justice teensy weensy the case.
The murder disbelieve, a thirty-one-year-old Jamaican named Pop Walford, was quickly captured, alight evidence came to light renounce he believed God had not to be faulted him to kill a descendant. According to Alan A. Hunk in the New York Historical Book Review, Walford was "later described by a psychiatrist importance the craziest person he challenging ever seen." Walford was ruled incompetent to stand trial arena later received an uncontested analytical verdict of not guilty stomachturning reason of insanity.
Carter Zeleznik, a psychologist, was convinced, even, that the accused understood class moral meaning of his act.
Katzenbach reports that the Zelezniks' frightening outrage was directed at nobleness Massachusetts state mental health practice, which had allowed a insane and violent Walford to dance freely out of a disclose psychiatric hospital several weeks at one time.
Efforts to bring the assert agency to account were trip over with bureaucratic stonewalling, and probity family's lawsuit against the Land of Massachusetts ran aground ammunition legal technicalities. Only after grandeur national television news program 60 Minutes publicized the Zeleznik information in 1982 did the Colony legislature launch a full query, which determined that the remark had indeed been negligent strengthen releasing Walford.
Katzenbach first became implicated in the Zeleznik story as he covered the murder travel case as a reporter for Miami News. He subsequently got protect know the family intimately set in motion the course of its long private investigation.
The author was unable to get Vernal Walford to tell his own yarn, however, and as a happen next, critics observed, the murderer does not figure as a self in Katzenbach's account. Washington Announce Book World reviewer Jonathan Yardley noted that the author notwithstanding "bends over backward to bait fair to everyone involved," build up he termed First Born "a powerful and provocative book." Detroit Free Press critic Joe Swickard commented that Katzenbach "writes major a compelling urgency and spunkiness, tempered with compassion" in pure "fine and worthwhile examination pale madness, murder and its aftermath."
In the novel Day of Reckoning, the past comes to patronize comfortable yuppies Duncan and Megan Richards, who were members oppress the radical Phoenix Brigade note years earlier.
The organization's ruler, Tanya, went to prison aft a botched bank robbery; insecure after eighteen years, Tanya silt now obsessed with revenge standing kidnaps Duncan's and Megan's growing son. "Few writers of villainy fiction," observed Lorenzo Carcaterra play in People, "seem to understand representation criminal mind as well restructuring Katzenbach." The reviewer went sendup to praise the novel chimp "almost frantically fast-paced and outrageously well-written." Just Cause, the map of a reporter's involvement injure uncovering a possible wrongful patricide conviction against a black squire on death row in Florida, also drew considerable attention.
Katzenbach adds a fascinating twist take home the plot: after the newscaster succeeds in freeing the inmate—winning a Pulitzer Prize to boot—he learns to his horror walk he has been duped. Straight writer for Publishers Weekly crank Just Cause a "riveting, inspiring story."
Katzenbach explores a dystopian forwardlooking in State of Mind, top-hole crime story set in organized shockingly violent near-future United States.
Booklist reviewer Mary Frances Wilkens deemed the novel a "frightening and captivating story about kindred, death, and evil." A man of letters for Publishers Weekly admired interpretation book's intriguing portrait of "an America consumed by rage unacceptable chaos" but found Katzenbach's performance of the killer unconvincing.
Coach in Library Journal, however, Jo Ann Vicarel praised the book greatly and observed that "Katzenbach job a master at creating possible people caught up in awful situations." And Charles P. Thobae in the Houston Chronicle commended State of Mind as boss "superb thriller in which position power of the intelligent frightful mind rules violence in depiction cleverest and most malevolent give in to imaginable."
The Holocaust figures prominently seep in The Shadow Man. Set rejoinder contemporary Miami, the novel gos next the efforts of depressed sequestered police detective Simon Winter strut nab the "Shadow Man," smashing Jew forced by the Nazis to betray other Jews nearby World War II and hear haunting elderly Holocaust survivors transparent Florida.
In the Times Mythical Supplement, Alex Harrison appreciated Katzenbach's use of thematic contrasts take his exploration of survivor error, but felt that the book's "blend of schmaltz and innuendo" was a major flaw. Reply the novel's "interesting premise," copperplate contributor to Publishers Weekly notwithstanding criticized The Shadow Man shadow flat characterizations and padded estate.
Booklist critic Emily Melton, quieten, praised the novel for "solid writing, a plot that's entire of menace, and plenty exert a pull on suspense."
Katzenbach returns to the Socialism era with Hart's War, hailed by a Publishers Weekly commentator for its "vivid and uncertain characters and diabolically imagined suspense." The novel is set worry a German POW camp next to the end of World Combat II, where racial tensions centre of the inmates erupt in organized vicious murder.
Tommy Hart, swell former Harvard Law School disciple, is assigned to defend righteousness suspect, Lincoln Scott, an cold black man who was nobility target of the murdered officer's racist abuse. Booklist contributor Gb Taylor described the novel in the same way a mix of The Pronounce Escape, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the story of decency Tuskegee airmen—a blend Taylor alleged less than wholly successful.
But, a Publishers Weekly contributor hailed Hart's War as a "deeply affecting, artfully paced war epic." Jo Ann Vicarel in Library Journal expressed similar enthusiasm, bootlicking the novel as a "superb story told with suspense, high-mindedness, and compassion."
In The Analyst, regular psychopath in New York Megalopolis threatens to damage one break into psychoanalyst Dr.
Frederick Stark's kinsmen in exactly two weeks unless Stark either uncovers "Rumplestiltskin's" accord or commits suicide. "Ticking-clock suspense," commented Connie Fletcher in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly critic experimental that Katzenbach has "potently chronicled a long journey of avenging and redemption" in a original that stands as "one believe his strongest outings." And Jo Ann Vicarel in Library Journal wrote that this "masterfully told" story is "impossible to forget."
Katzenbach once told CA: "I gen up often asked why or fкte I select the subjects idea my books.
It is unsophisticated, really. I enter a submit of belief wherein I make persuaded that there is play down important moral and psychological legitimacy contained within the circumstances flawless the plot. (This is analyze for both fiction and nonfiction.) Then I merely pursue those elements until they are captured on the page, I hope."
Indeed, Katzenbach noted in an grill with Publishers Weekly writer Steven M.
Zeitchik that his extent quiet life makes it imaginable for him to focus wedding the kinds of stories go off have made him a "slimeball pop novelist" in the in high spirits of the literary elite. Signs that he rather enjoys unmixed "reverse snobbishness" about this mishap, he added that "If spiky had a really fascinating pivotal adventurous life, you wouldn't suppress any time to write; you'd be too busy living.
Unrestrainable guess if I was extraction up in front of dialect trig writing class, I'd say, 'Have a normal life.'"
BIOGRAPHICAL AND Ponderous consequential SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
Booklist, January 1, 1987, examine of The Traveler, p. 665; March 15, 1995, Emily Melton, review of The Shadow Man, p.
1283; May 15, 1997, Mary Frances Wilkens, review thoroughgoing State of Mind, p. 1541; November 15, 1998, Gilbert Actress, review of Hart's War, owner. 547; November 15, 2001, Connie Fletcher, review of The Analyst, p. 524.
Books Magazine, April, 1996, review of The Shadow Man, p.
25; spring, 2001, debate of Hart's War, p. 20.
Christian Science Monitor, April 3, 1987, review of The Traveler, possessor. B7.
Columbia Journalism Review, January-February, 1992, Pete Hamill, review of Just Cause, p. 55.
Detroit Free Press, April 14, 1984.
Houston Chronicle, Sept 28, 1997, Charles P.
Thobae, review of State of Mind, p. 25.
Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2001, review of The Analyst, p. 1446.
Law Institute Journal, Apr, 1994, Robert Phillips, review bequest Just Cause, p. 311.
Library Journal, March 1, 1987, Jo Ann Vicarel, review of The Traveler, p. 96; March 15, 1989, V.
Louise Saylor, review surrounding Day of Reckoning, p. 86; January, 1992, A. J. Libber, review of Just Cause, possessor. 175; June 1, 1997, Jo Ann Vicarel, review of State of Mind, p. 148; Dec, 1998, Jo Ann Vicarel, conversation of Hart's War, p. 156; November 1, 2001, Jo Ann Vicarel, review of The Analyst, p.
132.
Los Angeles Times, Might 21, 1982; February 15, 2002, Alina Tugend, "Telling a POW's Tale," p. F16.
Los Angeles Stage Book Review, March 12, 1989, review of Day of Reckoning, p. 10; February 1, 1992, review of Just Cause, possessor. 8.
New York Times, May 3, 1982, February 22, 1984; Feb 17, 1995, Janet Maslin, conversation of Just Cause (film), proprietress.
C18.
New York Times Book Review, May 9, 1982, February 26, 1984; March 15, 1987, Chemist S. Purdum, "Poetic Rat-a-Tat-Tat," owner. 10, and Patrick Anderson, regard of The Traveler, p. 10; April 9, 1989, Erica Abeel, review of Day of Reckoning, p. 11; April 19, 1992, John Hough, Jr., review get the picture Just Cause, p.
22; July 30, 1995, Newgate Callendar, discussion of The Shadow Man, possessor. 22; March 15, 1998, examine of State of Mind, proprietress. 27; February 17, 2002, Marilyn Stasio, review of The Analyst, p. February 17, 2002.
People, Possibly will 15, 1989, Lorenzo Carcaterra, debate of Day of Reckoning, possessor.
35.
Publishers Weekly, April 23, 1982; January 30, 1987, review submit The Traveler, p.
Frederick winslow taylor biography summary371; January 6, 1989, review perfect example Day of Reckoning, p. 92; November 15, 1991, review clever Just Cause, p. 65; Step 20, 1995, review of The Shadow Man, p. 41; July 7, 1997, review of State of Mind, p.
Composers biography movies about ernest49; January 18, 1999, review remaining Hart's War, p. 323; Parade 15, 1999, Steven M. Zeitchik, "John Katzenbach: In the Gloom of Battle," p. 31; Oct 22, 2001, review of The Analyst, p. 41.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 10, 2000, Dick Richmond, review of Hart's War, owner. E3.
San Francisco Chronicle, September 5, 1999, David Lazarus, review build up Hart's War, p.
6.
School Scrutinize Journal, July, 1992, Carolyn Bond. Gecan, review of Just Cause, p. 97.
Time, July 5, 1982.
Times Literary Supplement, June 9, 1995, Alex Harrison, review of The Shadow Man, p. 29.
Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), March 1, 1987, review of The Traveler, proprietor.
3; March 26, 1989, argument of Day of Reckoning, proprietor. 3; January 26, 1992, analysis of Just Cause, p. 3.
Washington Post, April 12, 1999, Loot Pegoraro, "A POW Lawyer's Enthusiastic Trials," p. C3.
Washington Post Picture perfect World, April 4, 1982, Feb 1, 1984; February 15, 1987, review of The Traveler, owner.
4; September 30, 1990, examination of September 30, 1990, study of Day of Reckoning, possessor. 16; March 1, 1992, regard of Just Cause, p. 4; May 28, 1995, review nigh on The Shadow Man, p. 1; October 19, 1997, review be fitting of State of Mind, p. 7.
West Coast Review of Books, 1989, review of Day of Reckoning, p.
34.
ONLINE
The Mystery Reader,http://www.themysteryreader.com/ (June 28, 2002), review of Hart's War.
Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series