ENTRY

Alan Cheuse (1940–2015)

SUMMARY

Alan Cheuse was a novelist, book reviewer, memoirist, and professor of creative writing at George Mason University. A native of New Jersey, he authored several novels, collections of short fiction, a memoir, and personal essays. As a book reviewer, he was a regular contributor to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered since the 1980s. His criticism reflected the strengths of his fiction: a careful attention to voice and character that embodies both the influences of other notable writers and his own distinctive sense of whimsy. He died in 2015 from injuries sustained in a car accident.

Cheuse was born on January 23, 1940, in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, the son of a Russian immigrant father and a mother of Russian-Romanian descent. He was educated at Perth Amboy High School (1957) and Rutgers University (BA, 1961; PhD in Comparative Literature, 1974), where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the life and work of the Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier. Cheuse taught at Bennington College (Vermont), the University of the South (Sewanee, Tennessee), the University of Virginia (Charlottesville), and the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). He taught in the creative writing program at George Mason University from 1987 until his death. He lived in Northern Virginia during the school year and spent his summers in Santa Cruz, California, teaching at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.

Since having his first piece of short fiction published in the New Yorker at age thirty-nine, Cheuse’s work appeared in such literary magazines as Ploughshares, the Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, the Southern Review, and New Letters. In 1979, Cheuse received a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and he has traveled to Colombia, Uruguay, and Chile on a grant from the United States Information Agency.

The Fires

Cheuse’s work, The Fires, published in 2007 by the Santa Fe Writer’s Project, consists of a pair of interwoven novellas. The stories are centered on two very different deaths: one, of an American businessman traveling in Russia; the other, a mother, jazz pianist, and drug addict. Another novel, The Light Possessed (1990), is inspired by the life and works of the artist Georgia O’Keeffe.

Critics have praised Cheuse’s lyricism and strength of narrative voice, usually as filtered through a memorable protagonist or speaker. Passages often contain palpable echoes of the styles employed by other writers, which add depth to the narrative and likely stemmed in part from the voluminous reading and reviewing he performed for NPR.

Cheuse died on July 31, 2015, from injuries sustained in a car accident in California on July 14.

Major Works

  • Candace & Other Storie (1980)
  • The Bohemians: John Reed and His Friends Who Shook the World, A Novel (1982)
  • The Grandmothers’ Club (1986)
  • Fall Out of Heaven: An Autobiographical Journey (1987)
  • The Light Possessed (1990)
  • The Tennessee Waltz and Other Stories (1990)
  • Lost and Old Rivers: Stories (1998)
  • Listening to the Page: Adventures in Reading and Writing (2001)
  • The Fires (2007)
  • To Catch the Lightning (2008)
  • A Trance After Breakfast (2009)
  • Song of Slaves in the Desert (2011)
  • Paradise, or, Eat Your Face (2012)
  • An Authentic Captain Marvel Ring & Other Stories (2014)
  • Prayers for the Living (2015)

RELATED CONTENT
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TIMELINE
January 23, 1940
Alan Cheuse is born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.
1961
Alan Cheuse earns a BA from Rutgers University.
1974
Alan Cheuse earns a PhD in Comparative Literature from Rutgers University.
1979
Novelist Alan Cheuse receives a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
1987
Alan Cheuse begins teaching in the creative writing program at George Mason University.
1990
Novelist Alan Cheuse authors The Light Possessed, a novel inspired by the life and works of Georgia O'Keeffe.
July 14, 2015
Alan Cheuse is in a car accident in California.
July 31, 2015
Alan Cheuse dies from injuries sustained in a car accident in California on July 14.
FURTHER READING
  • “Alan Cheuse,” inDictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 244: American Short-Story Writers Since World War II, Fourth Series. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Patrick Meanor, State University of New York College at Oneonta and Joseph McNicholas, State University of New York College at Oneonta. The Gale Group, 2001, pp. 48-56.
CITE THIS ENTRY
APA Citation:
Hegnauer, Lilah. Alan Cheuse (1940–2015). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/cheuse-alan-1940-2015.
MLA Citation:
Hegnauer, Lilah. "Alan Cheuse (1940–2015)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 28 Nov. 2023
Last updated: 2021, December 22
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