Roy Doliner

Doliner grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Boys High School, where he was a starting outfielder on the varsity baseball team.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/686250278/?match=1&terms=%22roy%20doliner%22 | title=Boys High Turns Title Spotlight On Diamond | newspaper=Brooklyn Eagle | date=April 10, 1950 | page=17 | via=Newspapers.com}} He then went to New York University. In 1954, he graduated from there with a B.A. degree. He served in U.S. Army Intelligence during the 1950s, and then remained active in some related capacity during the later stages of the Cuban Revolution.

He married Aye (Patricia) Than, daughter of a prominent Burmese official, in 1964. The Secretary‐General of the United Nations, U Thant, accompanied the bride, who was employed at the UN.{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/13/archives/miss-than-becomes-roy-doliners-bride.html?searchResultPosition=1 | title=Miss Than Becomes Roy Doliner's Bride | newspaper=The New York Times | date=January 13, 1964 | page=26}} The couple lived in Manhattan; they would have two children together, and she would go on to a long career with the UN Development Programme.{{cite news | url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/nytimes/name/aye-doliner-obituary?id=52030525 | title=Aye Than Doliner | newspaper=The New York Times | date=March 9, 2015 | type=Classified}} See also {{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/storywall/the-lives-they-loved-2015/stories/aye-than-doliner | title=The Lives They Loved: Aye Than Doliner | first=John | last=Doliner | newspaper=The New York Times | date=19 December 2016 | access-date=November 26, 2024}} In 1966, Doliner sued his father in New York Supreme Court, claiming that his father had cut him out of the family canning business because he had married someone who was not Jewish.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-news/158704198/ | title=He Sues Dad for Boycotting His Wife Who Isn't Jewish | first=Alfred | last=Albelli | newspaper=New York Daily News | date=May 18, 1966 | page= 62| via=Newspapers.com}}

Doliner's first novel, Young Man Willing (1960), was set in New York's Broadway theatre scene.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/658853876/?match=1&terms=%22roy%20doliner%22%20%22Young%20Man%20Willing%20%22 | title=Books of the Day | editor-first=Thorpe | editor-last=Menn | newspaper=The Kansas City Star | date=January 23, 1960 | page=7 | via=Newspapers.com}} It was published in the United Kingdom as well as in the United States. His second novel, The Orange Air (1961), was a quasi-farce set in post-revolution Cuba and had a former major league baseball pitcher as protagonist.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/458370832/?match=1&terms=%22roy%20doliner%22%20%22Young%20Man%20Willing%20%22 | title=Castro Gets the Needle | first=Janice | last=Henson | newspaper=The San Francisco Examiner | date=April 9, 1961 | page=4 (Highlight) | via=Newspapers.com}} Film rights were sold for his third novel, Sandra Rifkin's Jewels (1966), and CBS Theatrical Films and Jerry Bick made a production agreement for it,{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/382404603/?match=1&terms=%27%27Sandra%20Rifkin%27s%20Jewels%27%27%20%22hollywood%22 | title=Movie Call Sheet | newspaper=The Los Angeles Times | date=October 7, 1967 | page=17 | via=Newspapers.com}} but no film was ever made. (At least one other novel of Doliner's was optioned,{{cite news | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MipZAAAAMAAJ&q=roy+doliner | title=uncertain | work=Luna Monthly | date=1974 | issue=uncertain | page=23}} also without any result.) These first three novels of Doliner's tended to be lighter in tone, with satirical aspects; The Antagonists (1967) represented a turn to the more serious.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-san-bernardino-county-sun/158704492/ | title=Roy Doliner Mixes Fact And Fiction | newspaper=The San Bernardino County Sun | date=October 22, 1967 | page=C-9 | via=Newspapers.com}}

Image:Roy Doliner paperback cover and course listing.jpg

Over time, Doliner came to specialize in the 'intelligent thriller', or as a Newsday profile put it, "thrillers distinguished for craftsmanship and depth of theme." His 1980 novel The Thin Line was a prequel to his earlier On The Edge, with both featuring disillusioned American intelligence agent Jack Sullivan.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/newsday-suffolk-edition/158704041/ | title=His Spy Thrillers Specialize in Moral Questions | first=Leslie | last=Hanscom | newspaper=Newsday | location=Suffolk County, New York | date=December 28, 1980 | page=18 (Ideas) | via=Newspapers.com}}

In addition to novels, Doliner wrote for magazines and worked on film screenplays. He was a member of the Authors Guild.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L25ycEzuXxIC&dq=roy+doliner+new+york+university+1954&pg=PA881 | title= Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature | volume= 2 | publisher=R. Reginald| year=1979 | page=881| isbn= 978-0-941028-77-6 }}

Doliner also taught writing. In particular, he was a lecturer at the New York University School of Continuing Education, with his "Fiction Writing II" course seeking to "raise a student's work to a professional level for eventual publication."{{cite book | title=New York University Bulletin: School of Continuing Education: Announcement for Spring 1979 | publisher=New York University | date=March 19, 1979 | pages=25 , 151}} The class was popular and he taught it for a number of years.

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During his career, Doliner bounced around among major publishing houses, with his novels being put out by Charles Scribner's Sons, Doubleday, Simon and Schuster, Viking Press, and Crown Publishers among others.

Reviews of Doliner's novels were generally positive-to-mixed. Writing for the New York Times Book Review, critic Anthony Boucher characterized The Orange Air as defying stylistic labels and being "an enjoyable and often acute novel."{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/04/16/101457969.html | title=Ex-Dodger in Havana | first=Anthony | last=Boucher | work=The New York Times Book Review | date=April 16, 1961 | page=35}} By comparison, the pseudonymous Newgate Callendar, writing for the same publication, found The Thin Line unsatisfactory and "an ambitious book that somehow fails to coalesce."{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/08/books/crime-255880.html?searchResultPosition=14 | title=Crime | first=Newgate | last=Callendar | work=The New York Times Book Review | date=February 8, 1981 | page=27}}

• Young Man Willing (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1960) [subsequent editions Fawcett, 1961; New English Library, London, 1964]
• The Orange Air (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961)
• Sandra Rifkin's Jewels (New American Library, 1966) [same imprint, 1968]
• The Antagonists (Doubleday, 1967) [Barker 1968, Corgi 1969]
• Rules of the Game (Doubleday, 1970)
• For Love Or Money (Simon and Schuster, 1974)
• On The Edge (Viking Press, 1978) [Ballantine Books, 1978; Collins Crime Club, 1979; Fontana, 1980]
• The Thin Line (Crown Publishers, 1980) [Berkley Books, 1982]
• The Twelfth of April (Crown Publishers, 1985) [Pocket Books, 1986]

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Category:1932 births

Category:2015 deaths

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American novelists

Category:American male novelists

Category:American satirical novelists

Category:American spy fiction writers

Category:American thriller writers

Category:Boys High School (Brooklyn) alumni

Category:New York University alumni

Category:New York University faculty

Category:Novelists from New York City

Category:Writers from Brooklyn

Category:Writers from Manhattan

Category:Writing teachers