Bette Howland
Bette Howland | |
|---|---|
| Born | Bette Lew Sotonoff January 28, 1937 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | December 13, 2017 (aged 80) Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Occupation |
|
| Spouse |
Howard Howland
(m. 1956, divorced) |
| Children | 2 |
| Parents | Sam Sotonoff Jessie Berger |
Bette Howland (January 28, 1937 – December 13, 2017) was an American writer and literary critic.[1] She wrote for Commentary Magazine.[2]
Biography
[edit]Born Bette Lee Sotonoff to Sam Sotonoff, a machinist, and Jessie Berger, a homemaker, she focused much of her work on her native Chicago, though she left the city in 1975.[3]
In 1956, she married Howard Howland, a biologist. The couple had two sons but later separated and divorced, though she kept his surname.[1] She worked as a librarian and did editorial work for the University of Chicago Press. She was a protegee, and sometime lover of Saul Bellow.[4]
Howland died on December 13, 2017, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, aged 80, while living near one of her sons, the philosopher Jacob Howland.[1]
Critical reappraisal
[edit]In 2013 editor Brigid Hughes found Howland's book W-3 and decided to include some of Howland's work in an issue of the literary journal A Public Space dedicated to obscure and forgotten women writers.[5]
A Public Space eventually decided to publish some of Howland's stories through their imprint in 2019, under the title Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage.[6][7]
Awards
[edit]- 1978: Guggenheim Fellow[8]
- 1984: MacArthur Fellows Program[9]
- 2022: Inductee in the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.[10]
Works
[edit]Books
[edit]- W-3, Viking Press, 1974; ISBN 978-0-670-74863-1
- Blue in Chicago, Harper & Row, 1978; ISBN 978-0-06-011957-7
- Things to Come and Go: Three Stories, Knopf, 1983; ISBN 978-0-394-53032-1[11]
- Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Brooklyn, NY : A Public Space Books, 2019, ISBN 978-0-9982675-0-0
Short stories
[edit]| Title | Publication | Collected in |
|---|---|---|
| "Julia" | Quarterly Review of Literature 9.4 (1958) | - |
| "Sam Katz" | Epoch 9.2 (Fall 1958) | - |
| "Aronesti" | The Noble Savage 5 (1962) | Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage |
| "Public Facilities" | Commentary (February 1972) | Blue in Chicago |
| "Blue in Chicago" | Commentary (August 1972) | |
| "To the Country" | Commentary (November 1973) | |
| "Golden Age" | Commentary (April 1975) | |
| "Twenty-Sixth and California" | Blue in Chicago (1978) | |
| "How We Got the Old Woman to Go" | ||
| "The Life You Gave Me" | Commentary (August 1982) | Things to Come and Go |
| "Birds of a Feather" | Things to Come and Go (1983) | |
| "The Old Wheeze" | ||
| "Power Failure" | The American Voice 1 (1985) | Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage |
| "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage" | TriQuarterly 104 (Winter 1999) | |
| "Mengele's Leg" | Confrontation 101 (Spring/Summer 2008) | - |
| "A Visit" | A Public Space 23 (2015) | Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage |
| "German Lessons" | Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (2019) |
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Genzlinger, Neil (17 December 2017). "Bette Howland, Author and Protégée of Bellow's, Dies at 80". New York Times. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
- ^ Braun, Aurel. "Search « Commentary Magazine". Commentarymagazine.com. Retrieved 2013-11-05.
- ^ Blades, John (March 18, 1993). "Home Again". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved November 5, 2013.
- ^ Devers, A.N. (4 December 2015). "Bette Howland: The Tale of a Forgotten Genius - Literary Hub". Lithub.com. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
- ^ Devers, A.N. (19 December 2017). "An Elegy for Bette Howland, a Writer Who Was Nearly Forgotten". Retrieved 11 April 2019.
- ^ "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage". Retrieved 11 April 2019.
- ^ Shtier, Rachel (7 May 2019). "More Die of Heartbreak; Bette Howland steps out of the shadow of Saul Bellow". Tablet. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
- ^ "Bette Howland - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation". Gf.org. Archived from the original on 2013-11-05. Retrieved 2013-11-05.
- ^ [1] Archived February 2, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Bette Howland: Inductee". Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. 2022. Retrieved 2023-08-11.
- ^ Kaplan, Joanna (20 March 1983). "DRY-EYED OBSERVER OF CITY LIVES (book review)". New York Times. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
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