Kenneth Gangemi

Kenneth Gangemi
Photo of Kenneth Gangemi in 1992
Kenneth Gangemi
Born (1937-11-23) November 23, 1937
Bronxville, New York, USA
Occupation Poet and fiction writer
Language English
Education Stanford University, San Francisco State College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Scarsdale High School
Notable works Olt (1969), Lydia (1970), Corroboree (1977), The Volcanoes from Puebla (1979), The Interceptor Pilot (1980)
Years active 1966–present

Kenneth Gangemi (born 1937, Bronxville, New York) is an American poet and fiction writer, best known for his 1969 debut novel, Olt, which has been variously republished and translated, and is remarkable for its brevity and avant-garde structure.[1][2][3]

In addition to publications in magazines and anthologies, he is the author of five books, three of them also published in England. Translations have appeared in French, German, Danish, and Turkish. His fiction has won him residencies at the Millay Colony for the Arts, Blue Mountain Center, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. He has won a Pushcart Prize,[4] a New York State CAPS grant, and a Stegner Fellowship[5] at Stanford University.

His books have been reviewed in The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, The London Review of Books, Le Monde, Le Figaro, The Chicago Sun-Times, Life magazine, The New Republic, The Los Angeles Times, American Book Review, The Village Voice, The New York Times, and many other publications.

Personal life

Kenneth Gangemi was born in Bronxville, New York and raised in nearby Scarsdale. He is of Italian and Swedish descent. He attended the public schools and then studied engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. During his college summers he worked in a gold mine in Ontario, on an offshore oil rig in Louisiana, and at a construction project in Connecticut.

After graduation from RPI, he traveled to San Francisco, where he had received two job offers. He worked as an engineer in the Potrero district for the Enterprise Engine and Machinery Company. He hated the job and spent afternoons watching the World Series in a nearby bar. After being fired, he began graduate work at San Francisco State College, studying with Walter Van Tilburg Clark.

San Francisco was much more affordable in those days. He paid $26 a month rent on Polk Street and later $40 on Mission Street. Students could work part-time jobs and put themselves through college without the help of parents or student loans. Three months before he would have been drafted, he traveled to Florida on a motorcycle to begin Navy flight training in Pensacola. After being commissioned he married Jana Fisher of suburban Cleveland, Ohio, an artist whom he had met at Skidmore College. The high points of flight training were the first solo in a T-34 at a grass field in Alabama and carrier qualifications in a T-28 in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Pensacola News Journal published his letter critical of Project Alert, a local right-wing organization. Instead of orders to report for jet fighter training in Texas, a letter informed him that he had been suspended. The admiral who was the chief of Naval Air Basic Training was reputed to be a member of the John Birch Society. During the two months of his suspension he used the time to obtain his private pilot's license. Eventually he resigned his commission, receiving an honorable discharge. Total military service was sixteen months and a few days.

He returned with his wife to San Francisco and began to write, renting a small room near their apartment in the Marina district. It was the first of eight writing rooms in six cities. An artist friend had told them how cheap it was to live in Mexico. Six months later he crossed the border at Nogales, looking for a town in which to live. At the time San Miguel de Allende was still undiscovered and inexpensive, with a small colony of Americans.

After he rented a house, his wife joined him, traveling on a bus from San Francisco. They lived for six months in San Miguel and then six months in Mexico City. Subsequently they lived in Palo Alto, Santa Monica, and New York, in four apartments in the East Village and on the Lower East Side. He took a six-month motorcycle trip to Mexico and Guatemala in 1974 to gather more material for The Volcanoes from Puebla. Two years later his wife died at age 38.

Published works

  • Olt, a novel. London: Calder & Boyars, 1969. New York: Orion Press (an imprint of Grossman/Viking), 1969. Paris: L'Herne, 1972. Frankfurt: März Verlag, 1977. London and New York: Marion Boyars, 1985. Copenhagen: Husets Forlag, 1991. Istanbul: Iletisim Yayinlari, 1994. Lincoln: iUniverse, 2001.
  • Lydia, a collection of poetry. Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1970.
  • Corroboree, humor and satire. New York: Assembling Press, 1977.
  • The Volcanoes from Puebla, fiction based on living and traveling in Mexico. London and New York: Marion Boyars, 1979, 1989. Lincoln: iUniverse, 2001.
  • Lydia/Corroborée, a dual volume, Lydia bilingual. Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1980.
  • The Interceptor Pilot, a cinematic novel. Paris: Flammarion (Pilote de chasse), 1975. London and New York, Marion Boyars, 1980, 1982. Lincoln: iUniverse, 2001.

References

  1. ↑ https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kenneth-gangemi/olt/
  2. ↑ http://www.gargoylemagazine.com/gargoyle/Issues/scanned/issue17/gangemi.htm
  3. ↑ McCaffery, Larry; Gregory, Sinda (1991). "Sophisticated Innocence: An Interview with Kenneth Gangemi". Mississippi Review. 20 (1/2): 63–75.
  4. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/24/books/instant-success-10-years-later.html
  5. ↑ https://creativewriting.stanford.edu/stegner-fellowship/current-fellows/former-stegner-fellows
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