Palace Thief (Canin)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 19, 1960
• Where—Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
• Reared—San Francisco, California
• Education—B.A., Stanford University; M.F.A., University of
   Iowa; M.D., Harvard University
• Awards—California Book Award
• Currently—Iowa City, Iowa


Born in Michigan and raised in California, Ethan Canin entered Stanford University dead set on an engineering career. Then, in junior year he took an English course that changed the direction of his dreams. Exposed for the first time to the brilliant short stories of John Cheever, he underwent a true epiphany. He changed majors and determined there and then to become a writer.

Canin proved sufficiently gifted to be accepted into the world-famous Iowa Writers' Workshop, but between the daunting competition and a severe case of writer's block, he developed serious doubts about his abilities. Discouraged, he enrolled in Harvard Medical School shortly after receiving his M.F.A. "It was a real failure of the imagination," he confessed in an interview with Stanford Magazine. "I just couldn't think of another job."

Perversely, Canin's muse returned in medical school. A few of his stories appeared in Atlantic Monthly, resulting in a book deal with Houghton Mifflin. In 1988, the short story collection Emperor of the Air was published to glowing reviews. (Writing in the New York Times, critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt observed "The way these stories transcend the ordinariness of human voices is ... startling.")

Canin spent the next few years conflicted over what he wanted to do with his life. He received his M.D. from Harvard and, for a while at least, successfully combined writing with the practice of medicine. But after the enthusiastic response to 1994's The Palace Thief, he found it increasingly difficult to juggle two careers. Finally, after much soul-searching, he made the decision to give up doctoring to become a full-time writer.

Although he is best known for short stories and novellas, Canin has also written full-length fiction—most notably the deceptively small and spare Carry Me Across the Water, proclaimed by the London Daily Telegraph as "[t]he most wise and beautiful novel of 2001." This story of a scrappy, 78-year-old Jewish-American who sets out to right a tragic mistake from his past is considered by many to be the author's finest work. In 2008, Canin published America America, an ambitious novel John Updike called "a complicated, many-layered epic of class, politics, sex, death, and social history...shuttling between the twenty-first-century present and the crowded events of 1971-72." Begun in early 2001, and stalled after the tragic events of 9/11, the story underwent ten rewrites before Canin finally finished it.

Canin writes slowly and with great deliberation, polishing phrases with grace, elegance, and an accumulation of detail his hero John Cheever would surely approve. Yet, despite his success, he admits that writing for him is hard work. He has repeatedly stated that the process is "exquisitely difficult," a misery rooted in fear and self-doubt. "Fear of failure is what's hard—it's overwhelming," he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "I'll never get beyond sitting down and saying, 'This is a disaster, this will never work.' "

Yet, "work" it most certainly does! Considered one of our finest writers (in 1996, he was named to Granta's list of Best Young American Novelists), Canin crafts wonderful, mature stories that resonate with timeless, universal themes. He is especially skilled at handling the sensitive, emotional terrain of family life—growing up, marriage, aging, and the complex relationships between fathers and sons. Small wonder the New York Times has called him "one of the most satisfying writers on the contemporary scene." It's an assessment Canin's many fans wholeheartedly endorse.

Extras
From a 2008 Barnes & Noble interview:

• Although his parents lived in Iowa City, Canin was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, while his mother and father were on vacation.

• Canin's father was an accomplished violinist who performed and taught throughout the East and Midwest before accepting the position of concertmaster for the San Francisco Symphony.

• Canin was mentored by his high school English teacher Danielle Steel, who read several of his stories and encouraged him to continue writing.

• In 1998, Canin joined the faculty at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the scene of his own literary meltdown. He enjoys teaching and finds the environment far kinder and more supportive than it was in his own student days.

• Along with fellow authors Po Bronson and Ethan Watters, Canin cofounded the San Francisco Writers' Grotto, a collective workspace for writers filmmakers, and narrative artists.

• Canin's novella The Palace Thief was filmed as The Emperor's Club, a 2002 movie starring Kevin Kline.

• In his own words:

I started America America in early 2001. After 9/11, I stopped working on it for a full two years, and when I came back I was motivated to make it a more overtly political story. History, politics, the nature of power and its costs-all these subjects were occupying my mind.

This novel was brutally difficult. But they all are. That's not news. I nearly gave up any number of times. I wrote a good ten drafts, but it wasn't till perhaps the seventh or eighth that, while teaching at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, I had a student turn in a story he'd re-written in such a way that I realized exactly what I needed to do on my own novel.

• When asked what book most influenced his career as a writer here is his response:

In college, I began as an engineering major. I was taking physics and math and not much else. I thought that the humanities, and certainly the arts, were for the soft-minded; I certainly would never have strayed near an English class. Then one day I happened upon a big red book called The Stories of John Cheever. I was waiting for someone and just found the book on a shelf; I sat down and read the first story, called "Goodbye, My Brother." From that point on, I wanted to be a writer.

(Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)