Ian Frazier

2010-11-23T05:48:09Z

Abc-mn-xyz: /* Writing career */ copy editing for encyclopedia style

{{Infobox writer
| image = Ian frazier 2010.jpg
| name = Ian "Sandy" Frazier
| pseudonym =
| birthname = Ian Frazier
| deathdate =
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| occupation = Non-fiction writer, Humorist
| nationality = [[United States|American]]
| period = 1974—present
| genre =
| subject =
| movement =
| notableworks = ''Great Plains'' (1989)<br>''Coyote v. Acme'' (1996)
| spouse =
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| children =
| relatives =
| influences =
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}}
'''Ian Frazier''' (born 1951 in [[Cleveland, Ohio]]) is an [[United States|American]] [[writer]] and [[humorist]]. He is best known for his 1989 non-fiction history ''Great Plains,'' and as a writer and humorist for ''[[The New Yorker]]''.<ref>{{cite web|author=|title=Contributors: Ian Frazier |url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/ian_frazier/search?contributorName=ian%20frazier |publisher=''[[The New Yorker]]''|date=|accessdate=22 May 2009}}</ref>

==Biography==
Frazier grew up in [[Hudson, Ohio]]; his father worked as a chemist for [[Sohio]];<ref>Ian Frazier, ''Family''. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994. p. 256.</ref> his mother was an amateur actor, performing and directing plays in local Ohio theaters.<ref>Ian Frazier, ''Family''. p. 26.</ref> Frazier attended [[Western Reserve Academy]], and later [[Harvard University]], where he was on the staff of the ''[[Harvard Lampoon]]''. He graduated in 1973.

Since departing the Great Plains, Frazier has lived in [[Brooklyn|Brooklyn, New York]], and [[Montclair, New Jersey]] with his wife, the author [[Jacqueline Carey (II)|Jacqueline Carey]], and their two children, Cora and Thomas.

Frazier's most autobiographical work is ''Family''.

==Writing career==
After graduating from Harvard, Frazier worked briefly as a writer for the [[pornographic magazine]] ''[[Oui Magazine|Oui]]'' in [[Chicago, Illinois|Chicago]].<ref>Ian Frazier. ''Family''. p. 351.</ref> The following year, he moved to [[New York City]] and joined the staff of ''[[The New Yorker]]'' magazine, where he wrote feature articles, humorous sketches, and pieces for "The Talk of the Town" section.

In 1982, Frazier moved to [[Montana]] and, through travel and library research, began collecting materials, anecdotes and impressions that would later become 1989's ''Great Plains''. He returned to the region in the later 1990s to research his book about [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]], ''On the Rez''.

In his [[nonfiction]] works such as ''Great Plains'', ''Family'', and ''On the Rez'', Frazier combines first-person narrative with in-depth research on topics including [[History of the United States|American history]], [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]], [[fishing]], and the outdoors. Frazier is among the best modern exponents of ''[[The New Yorker]]'''s style of level-headed, matter-of-fact lyricism; an example are these final lines from the 1985 essay "Bear News," reprinted in his 1987 collection ''Nobody Better, Better than Nobody''.<ref>Ian Frazier, ''Nobody Better, Better than Nobody," New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1987. p. 149-50.</ref>
:Beautiful scenery makes its point quickly; then you have to pay attention, or it starts to slide by like a loop of background on a Saturday-morning cartoon... When you see a bear, the spot where you see it becomes instantly different from every place else you've seen. Bears make you pay attention. They keep the mountains from turning into a blur, and they stop your self from bullying you like nothing else in nature. A woods with a bear in it is real to a man walking through it in a way that a woods with no bear is not. Roscoe Black, a man who survived a serious attack by a grizzly in Glacier Park several years ago, described the moment when the bear had him on the ground: "He laid on me for a few seconds, not doing anything...I could feel his heart beating against my heart." The idea of that heart beating someplace just the other side of ours is what makes people read about bears and tell stories about bears and theorize about bears and argue about bears and dream about bears. Bears are one of the places in the world where big mysteries run close to the surface.

''[[The New York Times]]'' critic [[James Gorman (journalist)|James Gorman]] described Frazier's 1996 humor collection [http://www.legalnews.net/quotes/wilee.htm ''Coyote v. Acme''] (in the title piece, [[Wile_E._Coyote_and_Road_Runner|Wile E. Coyote]] is suing the manufacturer of various rocket-propelled devices) as the occasion for "irrepressible laughter in the reader." Gorman rates Frazier's first collection, 1986s ''Dating Your Mom'', as "one of the best collections of humor ever published."<ref>[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B00E5D81539F930A15755C0A960958260 James Gorman, "Beep-Beep!", The New York Times, June 23, 1996.]</ref>

== Bibliography ==
'''Humour'''
* ''Dating Your Mom'' (1986)
* ''Coyote v. Acme'' (1996)
* ''Lamentations of the Father'' (FSG, 2008)[http://us.macmillan.com/lamentationsofthefather]
* ''Humor Me: An Anthology of Funny Contemporary Writing (Plus Some Great Old Stuff, Too)'' (Ecco, 2010)

'''Essay collections'''
* ''Nobody Better, Better than Nobody'' (1987)
* ''The Fish's Eye'' (2002)

'''Translation'''
* ''It Happened Like This'' (1998)

'''Non-fiction'''
* ''Great Plains'' (1989)
* ''Family'' (1994)
* ''On the Rez'' (2000)
* ''Gone to New York: Adventures in the City'' (2005)
* ''Travels In Siberia'' (2010)

'''Articles'''
*{{cite journal |last=Frazier |first=Ian |authorlink= |date=8 December 2008|title=Our Local Correspondents: The Rap |journal=[[The New Yorker]] |volume=84 |issue=40 |pages=72–81}} On [[Derrick Parker]].
*{{cite journal |unused_data=authorlink+ |last=Frazier |first=Ian |date=3 August 2009 |authorlink=+|title=A Reporter At Large, Travels in Siberia - I: The Ultimate Road Trip |journal=[[The New Yorker]] |pages=36–49}} On [[Siberia]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://us.macmillan.com/author/ianfrazier Ian Frazier at FSG]
* [http://wfmu.org/listen.ram?show=17665&archive=24959 Interview with Ian Frazier] on [[WFMU]]'s "The Speakeasy with Dorian" ([[RealAudio]])
* [http://www.stmarys-ca.edu/academics/adult_graduate/programs_by_school/school_of_liberal_arts/programs/mfa/Mary/archive/Mary_spring2006/reviews_frazier_mcfate.html Review of ''Gone to New York'']
* Select the Real Audio link by [http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/19980124/"LAMENTATIONS OF A FATHER"] at time 28:42 to hear Ian Frazier read his "Laws Concerning Food and Drink; Household Principles; Lamentations of the Father" on the January 24, 1998 ''Prairie Home Companion'' broadcast.
* The famous mock-legal complaint [http://www.legalnews.net/quotes/wilee.htm Coyote v. Acme], to which a lawyer made this [http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/95q2/coyotenacmedef.html reply]
* Lambert, Craig (September-October 2008). [http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/09/seriously-funny "Seriously Funny: Ian Frazier combines an historian’s discipline with an original comic mind"]. ''[[Harvard Magazine]]''.

{{Thurber Prize for American Humor}}
{{Persondata 
| NAME =Frazier, Ian
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES =Frazier, Sandy
| SHORT DESCRIPTION =
| DATE OF BIRTH = 1951
| PLACE OF BIRTH =
| DATE OF DEATH =
| PLACE OF DEATH =
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frazier, Ian}}
[[Category:1951 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:American writers]]
[[Category:Harvard Lampoon members]]
[[Category:People from Hudson, Ohio]]
[[Category:The New Yorker people]]
[[Category:New Yorker staff writers]]
[[Category:Thurber Prize for American Humor winners]]

Wikipedia - Benutzerbeiträge [de]

Ian Frazier