Jesse Ball

Jesse Ball
Jesse Ball, 2019
Born (1978-06-07) June 7, 1978 (age 46)
Port Jefferson, New York, U.S.
EducationVassar College
Columbia University (MFA)
Occupations
  • novelist
  • poet
Notable work
  • Silence Once Begun
  • A Cure for Suicide
  • Census
Movement
Spouses
Thordis Björnsdóttir
​
​
(m. 2005; div. 2012)​
Giselle Garcia
​
​
(m. 2013; div. 2016)​
Amalia Wiatr Lewis
​
(m. 2024)​
Honours

Jesse Ball (born June 7, 1978) is an American novelist and poet. He has published novels, volumes of poetry, short stories, and drawings. His works are distinguished by the use of a spare style and have been compared to those of Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino.[1][2][3]

Early life and education

Ball was born into a middle-class, English-speaking Irish-Sicilian family in Port Jefferson, New York, on Long Island. Ball's father worked in Medicaid; his mother worked in libraries. His brother, Abram, was born with Down's syndrome and attended a school some distance from the place where they lived.[2] Ball attended Port Jefferson High School, and matriculated at Vassar College.

Following Vassar, Ball attended Columbia University, where he earned an MFA and met the poet Richard Howard. Howard helped the then 24-year-old poet publish his first volume, March Book, with Grove Press.

Career

In 2007 and 2008, Ball published Samedi the Deafness and the novella The Early Deaths of Lubeck, Brennan, Harp & Carr. The latter won the Paris Review's Plimpton Prize. These were followed in 2009 by The Way Through Doors, and in 2011, The Curfew, whose style The New Yorker described as "[lying] at some oscillating coordinate between Kafka and Calvino: swift, intense fables composed of equal parts wonder and dread."[4]

Ball's 2014 book Silence Once Begun was reviewed by James Wood in The New Yorker in February 2014.[5] In 2015, he was a finalist for the NYPL Young Lion Prize[6] (also for Silence Once Begun). Later that year, he published A Cure for Suicide, which was long-listed for the National Book Award.

In 2017, Granta included him on their list of Best Young American Novelists.[7] On June 30 of that year Ball published an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times suggesting that all American citizens be incarcerated periodically, as a civic duty. The article likens this incarceration to already existing jury duty and states that no one, not even sitting politicians, judges or military officers would be free from it.[8]

Ball's The Divers' Game was included on The New Yorker's Best Books of 2019 list. Staff writer Katy Waldman writes, "This dystopic fable imagines a society riven in two, with the upper class empowered to murder members of the lower class, for any reason."[9]

Ball is represented by Jim Rutman of Sterling Lord Literistic.[10]

Personal life

In Iceland, Ball met Thordis Bjornsdottir, a poet and author who he collaborated with on two books, married,[2] and later divorced. Ball and the writer Catherine Lacey were partners from 2016 to 2021.[11] Ball married Amalia Wiatr Lewis in October of 2024.

Ball has lived since 2007 in Chicago. For nearly twenty years, he was on the faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he taught courses on lying, ambiguity, dreaming, and walking.[12] In 2024 he became the inaugural Sydney Blair Memorial Professor of Creative Writing and English at the University of Virginia. [13]

Works

Poetry

  • March Book. Verse. (New York, NY: Grove Press, 2004)
  • The Village on Horseback: Prose and Verse, 2003-2008 (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2011)

Novels

  • Samedi the Deafness. Novel. (New York: Vintage, 2007)
  • The Way Through Doors. Novel. (New York: Vintage, 2009)
  • The Curfew. Novel. (New York: Vintage, 2011)
  • Silence Once Begun. Novel. (New York: Pantheon, 2014)
  • A Cure for Suicide. Novel. (New York: Pantheon, 2015)
  • How to Set a Fire and Why. Novel. (New York: Pantheon, 2016)
  • Census. Novel. (New York: Ecco, 2018)[14]
  • The Divers' Game. Novel. (New York: Ecco, 2019)[15]
  • The Children VI. Novel. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sigilo 2022)[16]
  • The Repeat Room. Novel. (New York: Catapult, 2024)[17]

Short fiction

  • Vera & Linus. Stories. With Thórdís Björnsdóttir. (Reykjavík: Nyhil, 2006)
  • Parables & Lies. Prose. (Lincoln, NE: The Cupboard Pamphlet, 2007). Also included in The Village on Horseback: Prose and Verse, 2003-2008.
  • Pieter Emily. Novella serialized in Guernica Magazine (2009). Also included in The Village on Horseback: Prose and Verse, 2003-2008.
  • The Lesson. Novella. (New York: Vintage, 2016)[18]
  • Deaths of Henry King. Stories. With Brian Evenson, Lilli Carré. (New York: Uncivilized, 2017)

Nonfiction

  • Notes on My Dunce Cap. Nonfiction. (Brooklyn: Pioneer Works Press, 2016)[19]
  • Sleep, Death's Brother. Nonfiction. (Brooklyn: Pioneer Works Press, 2017)[20]

Memoir

  • Autoportrait. Memoir. (Catapult, 2022)

Drawings

  • Og svo kom nóttin, Drawings. With Thórdís Björnsdóttir. (Reykjavík: Nyhil, 2006)

Awards

Notes

  1. ^ Giraldi, William (Aug 26, 2011). "The Curfew - By Jesse Ball - Book Review". Retrieved Jul 31, 2019 – via NYTimes.com.
  2. ^ a b c "Where Dreams Lie: Inside the strange compelling worlds of Jesse Ball". Newcity. Feb 25, 2009. Retrieved Jul 31, 2019.
  3. ^ Ape, The (Aug 4, 2011). "Review: THE CURFEW by Jesse Ball". Retrieved Jul 31, 2019.
  4. ^ "The Curfew". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2017-08-24.
  5. ^ Wood, James (24 December 1969). "James Wood: Jesse Ball's "Silence Once Begun"". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2014-04-18.
  6. ^ "NYPL's Top Authors Under 35: 15 Years of Young Lions Fiction". The New York Public Library. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
  7. ^ a b "Granta's list of the best young American novelists". The Guardian. 2017-04-26. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
  8. ^ "Everyone should go to jail, say, once every ten years". LA Times. June 30, 2017.
  9. ^ "The Best Books of 2019". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2019-12-02.
  10. ^ "Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin". 14 June 2016.
  11. ^ Borrelli, Christopher (12 September 2018). "'The Answers' author Catherine Lacey conjures sentences that can stop you cold". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  12. ^ "Profiles". School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved Jul 31, 2019.
  13. ^ "Jesse Ball". University of Virginia. Retrieved Nov 5, 2024.
  14. ^ "Census". Harper Collins. Retrieved 2016-03-02.
  15. ^ "The Divers' Game - Jesse Ball - Hardcover". HarperCollins Publishers: World-Leading Book Publisher. Retrieved 2019-11-22.
  16. ^ "The Children VI - Jesse Ball - Paperback" (in Spanish).
  17. ^ "The Repeat Room". Retrieved 2024-11-03.
  18. ^ "The Lesson by Jesse Ball | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved Jul 31, 2019.
  19. ^ "Notes on My Dunce Cap | Pioneer Works". Archived from the original on 2016-03-30. Retrieved 2016-04-06.
  20. ^ "Jesse Ball: Sleep, Death's Brother | Pioneer Works". Pioneer Works. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
  21. ^ "The 2018-19 Berlin Prize - American Academy". Americanacademy.de. 24 April 2018. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
  22. ^ Flood, Alison (11 October 2018). "Jesse Ball's 'strange and beautiful' Census wins Gordon Burn prize". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 October 2018.

References

  • The New Yorker: "But He Confessed." Review of Silence Once Begun. February 2014.
  • Publishers Weekly: Review of Vera & Linus. October 2006.
  • Reykjavik Grapevine, "A Deep Strong Hope in Its Core" Profiled with Thordis Bjornsdottir following publication of Vera & Linus. Issue 15, 22 September—5 October 2006.
  • Frettabladid, "Natturulega skaldleg saelstilling" Interview with Thordis Bjornsdottir following publication of Vera & Linus, 9 September 2006.
  • Reykjavik Mag "Elegantly Brutal" Profile with Thordis Bjornsdottir following publication of Vera & Linus, July 2006.
  • POETRY DAILY: 3 July 2006, "Missive in an Icelandic Room 3" (From Denver Quarterly)
  • POETRY DAILY: 10 November 2005, "Parades," "I Followed A Ribbon" (From Paris Review)
  • Fréttabladid: Interview about poetry and about the life of a poet, 27 July 2005.
  • Icelandic Radio FM 90.9: Reykjavík, Iceland. Interview by Gunnar Peturrson for upcoming NYHIL festival, July 2005.
  • Boston Review: Boston, MA. Review of March Book by Desales Harrison. February/March 2005.
  • Book/ Mark: Long Island, NY. Review of March Book by Claire Nicholas-White. 2004.
  • The Times, Smithtown, NY; Port Times Record, Port Jefferson, NY. Profile following the publication of March Book. March 2004.

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