Frederic Tuten

Frederic Tuten
Frederic Tuten
	Frederic Tuten, from the back cover of Tintin in the New World Frederic Tuten, from the back cover of; Tintin in the New World
Born	The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer and essayist
Nationality	USA
Period	1969–present

Frederic Tuten is an American novelist whose works are characterized by a highly ingenious and lyrical prose style, which at times is reminiscent of a bygone era. He has written five novels – The Adventures of Mao on the Long March (1972), Tallien: A Brief Romance (1988), Tintin in the New World: A Romance (1993), Van Gogh's Bad Café (1997) and The Green Hour (2002) – as well as short stories and essays, many of the latter being about contemporary art.

Biography

Born in The Bronx, New York City, New York, in the USA, Tuten is the son of a Sicilian mother and a French-Huguenot father. His father left their family when Tuten was young, and though they were never close, his father eventually was a part of Tuten's life before his death. Tuten has been married twice.

Tuten received his undergraduate degree from the City College of New York. After studying pre-Columbian art history at the University of Mexico and travelling through South America writing on Brazilian cinema, he earned a Ph.D. in 19th-century American literature from New York University, concentrating on Melville and Whitman, and taught literature and American cinema in France at the University of Paris VIII.^[1]

Tuten spent 15 years heading the graduate fiction-writing program at the City College of New York. In that capacity, he championed the work of students Walter Mosley, Oscar Hijuelos, Aurelie Sheehan, and many others. He also taught classes on experimental writing at The New School. He is on the board of advisors for Guernica Magazine.Tuten's short fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, Fence, Fiction, Granta, The New Review of Literature, and Tri-Quarterly. In 1973, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing and in 2001 was given the Award for Distinguished Writing from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[1]

Tuten is also a well-known figure within the art world. He has worked as an art and film critic in various venues and often incorporates allusions to these fields in his fiction as well. Tuten was a close personal friend of Roy Lichtenstein and published several essays on his work, as well as catalogue essays for many other artists including John Baldessari, Eric Fischl, R.B. Kitaj, and David Salle.

Tuten currently resides in New York City's East Village. He is a close friend of actor/comedian Steve Martin.

Works

Novels

Several of Frederic Tuten's novels feature a cat named Nicolino.

Tuten's first novel, The Adventures of Mao on the Long March, a fictionalized account of Chairman Mao's rise to power, is highly experimental in nature. It contains Faulkneresque changes in narrative and lengthy fictional conversations with Mao that read like journalistic interviews. The story first appeared in 1969 in a 39-page condensed form in the magazine Artist Slain. The novel in its entirety was subsequently published by Citadel Press in 1971, and re-released in 2005 by New Directions.

The cover of Mao features original artwork by painter Roy Lichtenstein. This is fitting for Tuten whom, in life as in his novels, has a keen interest in artistic criticism (particularly with regard to painting). Tuten himself was actually used as a model for the drawing, which Lichtenstein altered accordingly to resemble Mao.

File:Tallien cover.gif

His next book, Tallien (1988), is also an interpretive examination of an historical figure, though one not nearly as well known as Mao. Jean Lambert Tallien was a high-ranking figure in the French Revolution, serving as the president of the Constitutional Convention and a member of the Committee of Public Safety. Like Mao, Tallien was a member of the common classes who rose to the upper crust of the revolutionary ranks.

Tuten tells the story of Tallien's courtship and marriage to Therese, a condemned member of the Spanish aristocracy. When eyebrows are raised by Tallien's show of clemency, Tuten describes in minute organizational detail the sometimes-banal and sometimes-bloody bureaucratic struggle that ensues. The narrative is intercut with the author's account of his own father's life, demonstrating an illiquid literary mechanism similar to that used in The Adventures of Mao.

Tuten, Frederic (1988). Tallien : A Brief Romance. New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. ISBN 0374272492. Reprinted as Tuten, Frederic (1989). Tallien : A Brief Romance. [S.l.]: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0297793179.; Tuten, Frederic (1995). Tallien : A Brief Romance. New York, N.Y.: Marion Boyars. ISBN 0714529907.; Tuten, Frederic (2005). Tallien : A Brief Romance. Baltimore, Md.: Imprint Edition. ISBN 1580730353 (pbk.). {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)

File:TintinNewWorld.jpg

Tintin in the New World (Marion Boyers, 1993).

Tintin in the New World (1993) is perhaps Tuten's best known and most critically acclaimed work. The novel's unlikely protagonist is Tintin, the cartoon boy detective created by Belgian comic artist Georges Remi, better known as Hergé. Tuten transplants Tintin from his comic book confines into a fleshed out, realistic world with all its wicked, grave and abstruse trappings. The cover of the novel, like The Adventures of Mao, features a specially-commissioned painting by Roy Lichtenstein. Again Lichtenstein makes use of the benday dot technique to depict Tintin and his dog Snowy in a near-miss with a would-be assassin's knife. Behind Tintin hangs the painting Dance (I) by Henri Matisse, which in reality is displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Curiously, Roy Lichtenstein's own rendering of Dance, sans Tintin, hangs in the same museum.

The book went through several print runs, both in the USA and the UK (in Britain, the novel was published by Marion Boyars Publishers, and later Minerva). The novel was also translated into French, German and Dutch. In 2005, it was re-released by Black Classics Press in the USA, with an introduction by Paul LaFarge. All editions of the book feature the Tintin Sitting jacket illustration created by Lichtenstein.

Though Tintin in the New World was received well by critics, some fans of the original Tintin comic were disappointed and, at worst, outraged; they did not consider it to be canonical. There was sometimes an expectation that the book would simply pick up where Hergé had left off, and that the direction taken by Tuten had sullied Tintin's image. Other Tintin fans, however, enjoyed the book, and viewed it not as an extension of Hergé's books but an entirely different representation of Tintin. The cover was also considered a triumph by many fans of Hergé's artwork.

Appreciation of the book is enhanced by an acquaintance with Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, the characters of which it uses.

Tuten, Frederic (1993). Tintin in the New World : A Romance. New York, N.Y.: W. Morrow. ISBN 0688123155.; Tuten, Frederic (1993). Tintin in the New World : A Romance. London: Marion Boyars. ISBN 0714529788. Reprinted as Tuten, Frederic (1996). Tintin in the New World : A Romance (1st Riverhead ed. ed.). New York, N.Y.: Riverhead Books. ISBN 1573225290. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Tuten, Frederic (2005). Tintin in the New World : A Romance. Baltimore, Md.: Imprint Editions. ISBN 1580730337.

File:Tuten Cafe.gif

Like Mao and Tallien, Tuten's next novel, Van Gogh's Bad Café (1997), offers an imagined glimpse into the psyche of a historical character, Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. The book is also similar to Mao in that the time and place of action and the narrator are inconsistent throughout and change without warning. Van Gogh's Bad Café explores the issues of depression and insanity.

Tuten, Frederic (1997). Van Gogh's Bad Café : A Love Story. New York, N.Y.: W. Morrow. ISBN 0688151345.; Tuten, Frederic (1997). Van Gogh's Bad Café : A Love Story. London: Marion Boyars. ISBN 0714530301. Reprinted as Tuten, Frederic (2005). Van Gogh's Bad Café : A Love Story. Baltimore, Md.: Imprint Editions. ISBN 1580730345 (pbk.). {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)

Tuten's most recent novel, The Green Hour (2002), is in many ways a departure from the others. The setting is the present day, and the characters are not borrowed from history. Further, it lacks much of the impertinent humor and ethereal feel of his previous works. The story recounts the 30-year love affair of two starkly different academics.

Tuten, Frederic (2002). The Green Hour. New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0393051056.

Short stories

"My Autobiography : Portable, with Commentary", Conjunctions 40, Spring 2003.
"The Park Near Marienbad", Conjunctions 42, Spring 2004.
"Voyagers", Conjunctions 44, Spring 2005.
"The Ship at Anchor", Granta 91, September 2005.

Tuten is currently working on a series of short stories with titles beginning "Self Portrait with..." Some have alrady been published in various venues:

"Self Portrait with Icebergs", KGB Bar Lit, 2005.
"Self Portrait with Cheese", Smyles and Fish 1, Fall 2006.
"Self Portrait with Beach", included in Mona Kuhn : Evidence, 2007 ISBN 3865213723

Essays

"Roy Lichtenstein Bronze Sculpture 1976–1989." 65 Thompson Street, 1989.
"Twenty-Five Years After : The Adventures of Mao on the Long March." Archipelago, 1997.
"Still Replying to Grandma's Persistent 'And Then?'" Writers on Writing.
Frederic Tuten / December Guest Editor. Guernica Magazine, 2006. Frederic Tuten comments on fiction from four selected writers whose work he edited for Guernica Magazine.

Other writings

Tuten has contributed to the following books:

R.B. Kitaj Pictures. Marlborough Gallery, 1974.
Roy Lichtenstein: Water Lilies. Richard Gray Gallery, 1992.
David Salle. Gagosian Gallery, 1999.
Roy Lichtenstein: Early Black and White Paintings. Gagosian Gallery, 2002.
Eric Fischl: Paintings And Drawings 1979-2001. Hatje Cantz, 2003. ISBN 3775713794
John Baldessari. Ecole normale supérieure des beaux-arts, 2005. ISBN 2840562006
Roy Lichtenstein: Conversations With Surrealism. Mitchell-Innes & Nash, 2006. ISBN 0974960748

Notes

^ ^a ^b Tuten, Frederic (2005). "Self Portrait with Icebergs". KGBBarLit. Retrieved 2007-06-15.

References

Tuten, Frederic (2005). "Self Portrait with Icebergs". KGBBarLit. Retrieved 2007-06-15.