Paula Fox

{{use mdy dates |date=February 2013}} {{Infobox writer

| name = Paula Fox

| image = Paula_Fox_writer.jpg

| pseudonym =

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{birth date|1923|4|22}}

| birth_place = New York City, U.S.

| occupation = Writer

| period = 1966–2011

| genre = Children's literature; novels, memoirs

| subject =

| movement =

| notableworks = {{plainlist|

Desperate Characters
The Slave Dancer
Borrowed Finery (memoir)

}}

| spouses = {{unbulleted list

| {{marriage|Howard Bird|1940||end=divorced}}

| {{marriage|Richard Sigerson|1948||end=divorced}}

| {{marriage|Martin Greenberg|1962}}

}}

| children = 3; including Linda Carroll{{efn|name=birthmother}}

| relatives = {{plainlist|

Courtney Love (granddaughter)
Frances Bean Cobain (great-granddaughter)

}}

| parents = Paul Hervey Fox (father)

| awards = {{awd |Newbery Medal |1974}} {{awd |Hans Christian Andersen Award |1978 }}

| signature =

| website =

| image_caption =

| death_date = {{death date and age|2017|3|1|1923|4|22}}

| death_place = New York City, U.S.

}}

Paula Fox (April 22, 1923 – March 1, 2017) was an American author of novels for adults and children and of two memoirs. For her contributions as a children's writer she won the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1978, the highest international recognition for a creator of children's books. She also won several awards for particular children's books including the 1974 Newbery Medal for her novel The Slave Dancer;{{efn|name=newbery}} a 1983 National Book Award in category Children's Fiction (paperback) for A Place Apart;{{efn |name=nba1970s}} and the 2008 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for A Portrait of Ivan (1969) in its German-language edition Ein Bild von Ivan.{{efn|name=djlp}}

In 2011, she was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame.[http://www.nyla.org/max/4DCGI/cms/review.html?Action=CMS_Document&DocID=1061&MenuKey=CFTB NYLA] The NYSW Hall of Fame is a project of the Empire State Center for the Book.{{Citation|title=NYLA|url=http://www.nyla.org/max/4dcgi/CFTB.html?menukey=CFTB}}. Her adult novels went out of print in 1992. In the mid nineties she enjoyed a revival as her adult fiction was championed by a new generation of American writers.

Early life

Paula Fox was born in New York City on April 22, 1923. Her mother, Elsie De Sola, was Cuban and a screenwriter.{{Cite web|url=http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-paula-fox-20170303-story.html|title=Author Paula Fox, Newbery Medal winner and grandmother of Courtney Love, dies at 93|agency=Associated Press|website=Los Angeles Times|date=March 3, 2017|access-date=March 6, 2017}} Her father, Paul Hervey Fox, wrote screenplays and taught English. After he divorced Elsie, he had 3 sons and a daughter with his second wife, Mary.{{citation needed|date=March 2017}}

Elsie De Sola Fox rejected her daughter Paula at birth and she and Paul left her in a foundling home. Her maternal grandmother, Candelaria de Sola, temporarily visiting New York City, rescued her and she was moved around Florida, Cuba and the US. Unable at the time to provide a home herself, Candelaria gave the infant to Reverend Elwood Corning and his bedridden mother in Balmville, New York.

Corning treated Fox kindly and taught her important lessons. When she first visited her parents at age five, her mother openly scorned her. As she wrote in her memoir Borrowed Finery, the reunion was so traumatic that "I sensed that if she could have hidden the act she would have killed me."

In 1943, Fox was living in the household of famed acting coach Stella Adler and became friendly with Marlon Brando, another of Adler's students who was living there.{{Citation|title=Kultur|url=http://www.dagbladet.no/2014/03/31/kultur/anmeldelser/litteratur/litteraturanmeldelser/bok/32399391/|newspaper=Dagbladet (Bok)|trans-title=Culture|date=March 31, 2014|language=no|place=NO}}.{{Citation|title=Courtney loveless family tree remains in mystery as feud with Grandma sizzles|newspaper=Observer|date=April 16, 2013|url=http://observer.com/2013/04/courtney-loveless-family-tree-remains-mystery-as-feud-with-grandma-sizzles/}}. She became pregnant and gave the child, Linda Carroll, up for adoption.{{Cite web|work=San Francisco Chronicle|url=https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Courtney-and-Dad-No-Love-Lost-He-downplays-3033159.php|title=Courtney and Dad -- No Love Lost|date=1995-05-11|author=Selvin, Joel|access-date=2021-05-08}} There have been persistent rumors that Brando was in fact Carroll's father,{{cite web |url=http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/love-and-fame-provide-themes-for-corvallis-author/article_2a3326d6-6334-11e4-880d-0329c1136b49.html |title=Love and fame provide themes for Corvallis author |first=Theresa |last=Novak |newspaper=Corvallis Gazette-Times|date=November 3, 2014}} although neither Brando nor Fox ever commented on the matter.{{cite web |url=http://observer.com/2013/04/courtney-loveless-family-tree-remains-mystery-as-feud-with-grandma-sizzles/ |title=Courtney Loveless: Family Tree Remains Mystery as Feud with Grandma Sizzles |first=Nate |last=Freeman |date=April 16, 2013 |work=Observer}}{{cite web |url=http://media.waaf.com/a/95531212/is-it-fact-or-is-it-schmact-8-13-14.htm |title=Is It Fact or Is It Schmact? |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20141130005812/http://media.waaf.com/a/95531212/is-it-fact-or-is-it-schmact-8-13-14.htm |archivedate=2014-11-30 }} Carroll, who became an author and psychotherapist, is the mother of musician Courtney Love. Visual artist Frances Bean Cobain is Fox's great-granddaughter.{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/7543866/Courtney-Love-damage-limitation.html|title=Courtney Love: damage limitation|date=April 2010 |access-date=March 4, 2017}}

Career

Fox attended the Columbia University School of General Studies from 1955-58 and married Richard Sigerson, by whom she had two sons. She later married literary critic and translator Martin Greenberg, and worked for years as a teacher and tutor for troubled children. Only in her 40s did she begin her first novel, Poor George, about a cynical schoolteacher who finds purpose—and ruin—in mentoring a vagrant teenager. The novel was received well (Bernard Bergonzi in the New York Review of Books calling it "the best novel I've read in a long time") but sold poorly, a pattern that all her adult novels would follow. Desperate Characters came next with Alfred Kazin calling it a "brilliant performance" and "quite devastating" while Lionel Trilling described it as "a reserved and beautifully realized novel". By 1992 all six of her novels were out of print.

In 2011 she was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame.{{Citation|title=NYLA|url=http://www.nyla.org/max/4DCGI/cms/review.html?Action=CMS_Document&DocID=1061&MenuKey=CFTB}}. The Writers Hall of Fame is a project of the Empire State Center for the Book. She was championed by the author Jonathan Franzen, who saw that some of her books were re-issued.

Fox died at age 93 in Brooklyn on March 1, 2017.{{cite news|last1=Fox|first1=Margalit|title=Paula Fox, Novelist Who Chronicled Dislocation, Dies at 93|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/books/paula-fox-dead.html|date=March 3, 2017|work=The New York Times}}

Adaptations

A Portuguese Feature Film{{Citation|title="Coitado do Jorge" excerpt on Youtube| date=December 11, 2017 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoIIEYZl2hQ/?Action=CMS_Document&DocID=1061&MenuKey=CFTB |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/VoIIEYZl2hQ |archive-date=2021-12-21 |url-status=live}}{{cbignore}}. Coitado do Jorge{{Citation|title="Coitado do Jorge"(1993) at IMDB|date = July 13, 2009|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106585/?Action=CMS_Document&DocID=1061&MenuKey=CFTB}}. based on Poor George was directed by Jorge Silva Melo in 1993. Desperate Characters was made into a movie starring Shirley MacLaine in 1971.

Works

=Children's fiction=

1966 Maurice's Room (illustrated by Ingrid Fetz)
1967 How Many Miles to Babylon? (illus. Paul Giovanopoulos)
1967 A Likely Place (illus. Edward Ardizzone)
1968 Dear Prosper (illus. Steve McLachlin)
1968 The Stone-Faced Boy (illus. Donald A. Mackay)
1969 Hungry Fred (illus. Rosemary Wells)
1969 The King's Falcon (illus. Eros Keith)
1969 Portrait of Ivan (illus. Saul Lambert)
1970 Blowfish Live in the Sea{{efn|name=nba1970s}}
1973 Good Ethan (illus. Arnold Lobel)
1974 The Slave Dancer (illus. Eros Keith)
1978 The Little Swineherd and Other Tales (1996 edition illus. Robert Byrd){{efn|name=nba1970s}}
1980 A Place Apart
1984 One-Eyed Cat{{efn|name=newbery|1=Beside winning the Newbery Medal for The Slave Dancer in 1974, Fox was a runner-up for One-Eyed Cat in 1985. Runner-up books are termed Newbery Honor Books and may display a silver seal.}}
1986 The Moonlight Man {{ISBN|0-02-735480-6}}
1987 Lily and the Lost Boy (also as The Lost Boy) {{ISBN|0-531-08320-9}}
1988 The Village by the Sea (also as In a Place of Darkness)
1991 Monkey Island
1993 Western Wind
1995 The Eagle Kite (also as The Gathering Darkness){{efn |name=djlp}}
1997 Radiance Descending{{efn |name=djlp}}
1999 Amzat and His Brothers: Three Italian Tales

=Memoirs=

2001 Borrowed Finery
2005 The Coldest Winter: A Stringer in Liberated Europe

=Adult fiction=

1967 Poor George
1970 Desperate Characters
1972 The Western Coast
1976 The Widow's Children
1984 A Servant's Tale
1990 The God of Nightmares
2011 News from the World: Stories and Essays

Notes

{{notelist |25em |notes=

{{efn |name=birthmother |1=

Fox is also the birth mother of Linda Carroll (b. 1944), who was adopted by an Italian Catholic family. In turn, Carroll is the mother of Courtney Love.

• [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/05/LVGMTGVUQ31.DTL "MOTHERS & DAUGHTERS: Courtney Love's mom, Linda Carroll, reflects on her daughter and her own birth mother"], Neva Chronin, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, February 5, 2006. Retrieved 2012-02-27.

}}

{{efn |name=nba1970s |1=

Before winning the 1983 children's paperback fiction award for A Place Apart, Fox was a finalist for the overall National Book Award, Children's Literature with Blowfish Live in the Sea in 1971 and The Little Swineherd in 1979.

• [https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1970 "National Book Awards – 1970"]. NBF. Retrieved 2012-02-08. (Select 1971 and 1979 from the top left menu.)

}}

{{efn |name=djlp |1=

Besides winning the overall Children's Book prize in 2008 (Ein Bild von Ivan; A Portrait of Ivan, 1969), Fox made the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis Youth Book shortlist in 1988 (Der Schattentänzer; The Slave Dancer, 1974) and Children's Book shortlist in 2002 (Paul ohne Jacob; Radiance Descending, 1997, featuring a brother's Downs syndrome). For the latter and another book by Fox (Jenseits der Lügen; The Eagle Kite, 1995, featuring a father's homosexuality and AIDS) Cornelia Krutz-Arnold won a special prize for translation in 2002.

• [http://www.djlp.jugendliteratur.org/archiv_datenbanksuche-26.html?suche=53134 (Paula Fox, all listings)]. DJLP.

}}

References

{{reflist |25em |refs=

{{cite news|last=Acocella|first=Joan|title=From Bad Beginnings|url=http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2011/05/16/110516crbo_books_acocella|access-date=March 1, 2012|newspaper=The New Yorker|date=May 16, 2011}}

{{cite news|last=Edemariam|first=Aida|title=A qualified optimist |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jun/21/featuresreviews.guardianreview7|access-date=June 23, 2011|newspaper=The Guardian|date=June 21, 2003}}

{{cite web|last=Italie|first=Hillel|title=Paula Fox looks back on a wayward life|url=http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2011/05/05/6589368-paula-fox-looks-back-on-a-wayward-life|publisher=newsvine.com|access-date=March 6, 2012|date=May 5, 2011}} {{clarify|date=February 2013|reason=content may be unavailable or for subscribers only}}

Staino, Rocco (May 12, 2011). [http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/890537-312/paula_fox_on_a_roll.html.csp "Paula Fox on a Roll"]. School Library Journal. Retrieved May 12, 2011.

[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1983 "National Book Awards – 1983"]. National Book Foundation (NBF). Retrieved February 27, 2012.

[http://www.ibby.org/index.php?id=273 "Hans Christian Andersen Awards"]. International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). Retrieved July 16, 2013.

[http://www.literature.at/viewer.alo?objid=14769&viewmode=fullscreen&rotate=&scale=3.33&page=53 "Paula Fox"] (pp. 58–59, by Eva Glistrup).

The Hans Christian Andersen Awards, 1956–2002. IBBY. Gyldendal. 2002. Hosted by Austrian Literature Online. Retrieved July 23, 2013.

[http://www.djlp.jugendliteratur.org/archiv_datenbanksuche-26.html?suche=53134 (Paula Fox, all listings)]. Datenbanksuche (database search). Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (DJLP). Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur (Jugend literatur). Retrieved July 16, 2013. For general information select "Infos zum Preis" or "English key facts".

[http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberyhonors/newberymedal "Newbery Medal and Honor Books, 1922–Present"]. Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). American Library Association (ALA).

[http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/aboutnewbery/aboutnewbery "The John Newbery Medal"]. ALSC. ALA. Retrieved July 16, 2013.}}

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20131231001455/http://www.boydsmillspress.com/contributors/author/fox-paula Paula Fox] at Boyds Mills Press
{{LCAuth|n79126815|Paula Fox|57|}}

;Interviews

{{Citation|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1/the-art-of-fiction-no-181-paula-fox|title=Interview: Paula Fox|newspaper=The Art of Fiction|number=181|first=Oliver|last=Broudy|publisher=The Paris Review|date=Summer 2004|volume=Summer 2004}}.
[http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2195004.htm Interview] by Ramona Koval for The Book Show on ABC Radio National (July 29, 2004).
[http://www.loggernaut.org/interviews/paulafox/ Interview with short biography] by Jesse Lichtenstein for Loggernaut (no date)
[http://therumpus.net/2010/02/the-rumpus-long-interview-with-paula-fox/ The Rumpus Long Interview with Paula Fox] by Greg Gerke (January 24, 2010)