NYS Writers Institute, December 2, 2014
4:15 p.m. Seminar | Standish Room, Science Library, Uptown Campus
7:00 p.m. Reading | Assembly Hall, Campus Center, Uptown Campus

EVENT DETAILS:
Joseph O’Neill, author of the bestselling novel, Netherland (2008), winner of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award, will present his new novel, The Dog (2014), which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, on Tuesday, December 2, 2014 at 8:00 p.m. in the Assembly Hall, Campus Center, on the University at Albany’s uptown campus. Earlier that same day at 4:15 p.m. the author will present an informal seminar in the Standish Room of the Science Library. The events are sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute and are free and open to the public.

PROFILE
Joseph O’Neill’s new novel, The Dog (2014), long-listed for the 2014 Man Booker Prize, tells the story of a luckless middle-aged man who flees New York City after a traumatic break-up with his long-term girlfriend in order to take a job as the household manager of a rich and capricious family in Dubai.

In a starred review, Publishers Weekly said, “Pitch-perfect prose . . . Clever, witty, and profoundly insightful, this is a beautifully crafted narrative about a man undone by a soulless society.” Writing in the Chicago Tribune, Nick Romeo said, “An interesting moral complexity makes [The Dog] more than a comic novel. The writing is brisk and funny, but O’Neill is also exploring deep questions about ethics and happiness in a globalized age of instant information and economic inequality. His narrator is a fascinating creation: charming and repugnant, selfless and self-absorbed, erudite and steeped in popular culture.”

O’Neill received superlative praise and the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for his earlier novel, Netherland (2008), the story of a multiracial group of immigrant cricket players living in New York City. Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times called it, “Stunning . . . with echoes of The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s masterpiece . . . A resonant meditation on the American Dream.” New Yorker critic James Wood called it, “Exquisitely written,” and “one of the most remarkable postcolonial books I have ever read.”  Netherland was also named one of the “Ten Best Books of 2008” by the New York Times.

In May 2009, President Obama revealed that he had taken up “Netherland” as bedtime reading. In a Newsweek interview he called it, “Fascinating…. A wonderful book,” and in a BBC World Service interview he called it “An excellent novel.” His endorsement gave Netherland a substantial boost in sales and pushed it on to a number of national and international bestseller lists.

The son of an Irish father and a Turkish mother, O’Neill was born in Cork, Ireland and grew up in the Netherlands. His previous books include the novels This Is the Life (1991) and The Breezes (1996), and the memoir, Blood Dark Track (2001), a New York Times Notable Book for 2002, and a Book of the Year for the Economist and the Irish Times. Blood Dark Track explores the lives of O’Neill’s grandfathers, one Irish and an IRA soldier, the other Turkish and a suspected Axis spy, both imprisoned by the British for political crimes during World World II. The Times Literary Supplement said, “The progress of his investigations are imbued with all the darkening excitement of a novel by le Carre or Greene.”

O’Neill teaches at Bard College and writes regularly for The Atlantic.

Previous Visit: September 29, 2009

For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.