[close] David Ebershoff is the author of three bestselling novels and a short story collection. His debut, THE DANISH GIRL, won the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Lambda Literary Award, and an American Library Association Book Award. It is being adapted into a feature film with Nicole Kidman. His second novel, PASADENA, was named a Wall Street Journal Editor’s Pick, a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year, and became a New York Times bestseller. His short story collection, THE ROSE CITY, won the Ferro-Grumley Award and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.

His third novel, THE 19TH WIFE, was an immediate international bestseller, landing on the New York Times bestseller list and reaching #1 in Britain. The book was a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award, the Utah Book Award, and the Galaxy British Book Award. It has half a million copies in print in English alone.

The novel has been described as "Wonderfully lyrical. . . . it does that thing all good novels do: It entertains us." – The Los Angeles Times.

"Coming on the heels of the news-making raid on the FLDS polygamist sect in Texas, this lyrical yet fact-packed epic about the Mormon practice of plural marriage is both timely and transporting. Ebershoff intertwines a modern-day murder mystery with a sweeping historical saga; his title refers to the real-life wife of Mormon leader Brigham Young, who fled her husband and ditched her faith in 1873. Based on Ann Eliza's groundbreaking 1875 memoir, Wife No. 19, and her subsequent campaign to make polygamy illegal, Ebershoff re-creates her struggles as a "sister wife," bringing to life the jealousies, insecurities and financial hardships of being one of a string of spouses -- all of whom Brigham claimed to marry in honor of God. Equally compelling is the book's gritty contemporary story of another 19th wife -- from a renegade cult in the remote desert -- accused of killing her husband after he tells her he will no longer sleep with her. This wife is ultimately redeemed by her gay son, whom she abandoned (under orders from the sect's 'Prophet') when he was 14. Ebershoff's exhaustive research and deft prose combine to make his third novel a literary tour de force."

"A compelling portrait of the beginnings and ends of Mormon polygamy, and a marvelous examination of its effects on women (the obvious sufferers) and men (also brutalized, the author shows). The 19th Wife is an exploration of how and whether community is possible after a loss of belief." —Newsday

Since 1996, Ebershoff has been on staff at Random House. For many years he was the publishing director of Random House's classics imprint, the Modern Library - www.modernlibrary.com. He is currently an editor-at-large for Random House, editing a wide range of fiction and non-fiction writers including David Mitchell, Charles Bock, Billy Collins, Gary Shteyngart, Diane Keaton, Shirin Ebadi, Azadeh Moaveni, Ronald C. White, Jr., and Katha Pollitt.

Ebershoff has taught creative writing at New York University and Princeton and currently teaches in the MFA program at Columbia University.

Originally from Pasadena, California, Ebershoff is a graduate of the Polytechnic School, Brown University, and the University of Chicago. He lives in New York City. [close]