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Steve Stern

Author profile

born

Memphis, Tennessee, The United States

gender

male

genre

Literature & Fiction, Short Stories

About this author

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Stern was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1947, the son of a grocer. He left Memphis in the 1960s to attend college, then to travel the US and Europe — living, as he told one interviewer, "the wayward life of my generation for about a decade," and ending on a hippie commune in the Ozarks. He went on to study writing in the graduate program at the University of Arkansas, at a time when it included several notable writers who've since become prominent, including poet C.D. Wright and fiction writers Ellen Gilchrist, Lewis Nordan, Lee K. Abbott and Jack Butler.

Stern subsequently moved to London, England, before returning to Memphis in his thirties to accept a job at a local folklore center. There he learned about the city's old Jewish ghetto, The...more Stern was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1947, the son of a grocer. He left Memphis in the 1960s to attend college, then to travel the US and Europe — living, as he told one interviewer, "the wayward life of my generation for about a decade," and ending on a hippie commune in the Ozarks. He went on to study writing in the graduate program at the University of Arkansas, at a time when it included several notable writers who've since become prominent, including poet C.D. Wright and fiction writers Ellen Gilchrist, Lewis Nordan, Lee K. Abbott and Jack Butler.

Stern subsequently moved to London, England, before returning to Memphis in his thirties to accept a job at a local folklore center. There he learned about the city's old Jewish ghetto, The Pinch, and began to steep himself in Yiddish folklore. He published his first book, the story collection Isaac and the Undertaker's Daughter, which was based in The Pinch, in 1983. It won the Pushcart Writers' Choice Award and acclaim from some notable critics, including Susan Sontag, who praised the book's "brio ... whiplash sentences ... energy and charm," and observed that "Steve Stern may be a late practitioner of the genre [Yiddish folklore], but he is an expert one."

By decade's end Stern had won the O. Henry Award, two Pushcart Prize awards, published more collections, including Lazar Malkin Enters Heaven (which won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish American Fiction) and the novel Harry Kaplan's Adventures Underground, and was being hailed by critics such as Cynthia Ozick as the successor to Isaac Bashevis Singer. Stern's 2000 collection The Wedding Jester won the National Jewish Book Award, and his novel The Angel of Forgetfulness was named one of the best books of 2005 by The Washington Post.

Stern, who teaches at Skidmore College, has also won some notable scholarly awards, including fellowships from the Fulbright and the Guggenheim foundations. He currently lives in Ballston Spa, New York, and his latest work, the novel The Frozen Rabbi, was published in 2010.

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Steve Stern's Books

Average rating: 3.39 · 728 ratings · 192 reviews · 18 distinct works · Similar authors

	The Frozen Rabbi 3.11 of 5 stars 3.11 avg rating — 463 ratings — published 2010 — 8 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Angel of Forgetfulness 3.57 of 5 stars 3.57 avg rating — 58 ratings — published 2005 — 5 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The North of God 4.18 of 5 stars 4.18 avg rating — 34 ratings — published 2008	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Book of Mischief: New and Selected Stories 3.52 of 5 stars 3.52 avg rating — 25 ratings — published 2012 — 2 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lazar Malkin Enters Heaven: Stories 3.89 of 5 stars 3.89 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 1987 — 3 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Plague of Dreamers: Three Novellas 4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 avg rating — 14 ratings — published 1994 — 2 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Wedding Jester 4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 avg rating — 14 ratings — published 1999	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harry Kaplan's Adventures Underground 3.88 of 5 stars 3.88 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 1991	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Isaac and the Undertaker's Daughter 4.4 of 5 stars 4.40 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1983	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Moon and Ruben Shein 4.5 of 5 stars 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1984	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Steve Stern

“Sometimes, when I couldn’t afford to pay the utility bill at the end of the month, I was forced to read by the light of the stories themselves.”
― Steve Stern

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3 people liked it

“The golem is for Franz Kafka big headache.." The ache, he confided, grew in Kafka's head, spreading throughout his bones, his joints swelling until there was no longer room in the writer's skin for both himself and the golem; then his skin split at the seams, and the creature burst forth like the Incredible Hulk, thereby expelling Kafka from his own body.

What do you have in common with Jews?" Svatopluk was whispering in my ear. "This, Kafka us asked at a crucial point in his life, and replies, 'I have nothing in common with myself, and should sit quietly in corner content that I can breathe.'"

Highly suggestible, I saw the monster born from Kafka's brain not as a magical or supernatural creation but a behaimeh member of the community that trafficked in the impossible. I saw the creature lumbering gumby-like behind his plodding master just as I had followed Svat, or poor dead Billy or Aunt Keni Shendeldecker, the only woman I'd ever loved; I saw the citizens of the rabbi's courtyard gossiping, making lame jokes about the golem's marriageability and his alleged prowess in bed.”
― Steve Stern, The Angel of Forgetfulness

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