Paula Fox
American author (1923–2017) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paula Fox (April 22, 1923 – March 1, 2017) was an American author of novels for adults and children and of two memoirs. Fox won the Newbery Medal in 1974 for her novel The Slave Dancer. She also won the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1978 and won a 1983 National Book Award in category Children's Fiction (paperback) for A Place Apart. In the mid-1990s, she enjoyed a revival as her adult fiction was championed by a new generation of American writers. In 2011, she was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame.
Paula Fox | |
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| Born | April 22, 1923 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | March 1, 2017 (aged 93) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Period | 1966–2011 |
| Genre | Children's literature; novels, memoirs |
| Notable works |
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| Notable awards | Newbery Medal 1974 Hans Christian Andersen Award 1978 |
| Spouses |
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| Children | 3; including Linda Carroll[a] |
| Parents | Paul Hervey Fox (father) |
| Relatives |
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Fox is the biological mother of writer Linda Carroll and the biological grandmother of musician Courtney Love.
Early life
Paula Fox was born in New York City on April 22, 1923. Her mother, Elsie De Sola, was a Cuban screenwriter.[1] Her father, Paul Hervey Fox, was a writer as well.[1]
Elsie De Sola Fox rejected Paula at birth, and she and her husband left Paula at a foundling home. Paula's maternal grandmother, Candelaria de Sola, rescued her. Unable at the time to provide a home for Fox herself, Candelaria gave the infant to Reverend Elwood Corning and his bedridden mother in Balmville, New York.[2] Corning treated Fox kindly and taught her important lessons.[3]
When Fox first visited her parents at age five, her mother openly scorned her. As Fox wrote in her memoir Borrowed Finery, the reunion was so traumatic that she sensed that if her mother "could have hidden the act she would have killed me."[3] Fox would later refer to her mother as a "sociopath."[4]
Fox was raised by a succession of relatives, friends, and paid caregivers. She attended high school for only five months.[3]
Fox attended the Columbia University School of General Studies from 1955 to 1958.[5]
Career
Summarize
Perspective
Fox worked for years as a teacher and tutor for troubled children. Only in her 40s did she begin her first novel, Poor George, about a cynical schoolteacher who finds purpose—and ruin—in mentoring a vagrant teenager.[5] The novel was received well (Bernard Bergonzi in the New York Review of Books calling it "the best novel I've read in a long time") but sold poorly, a pattern that all her adult novels would follow. Desperate Characters came next with Alfred Kazin calling it a "brilliant performance" and "quite devastating" while Lionel Trilling described it as "a reserved and beautifully realized novel".[3]
For her contributions as a children's writer, Fox won the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1978, the highest international recognition for a creator of children's books.[6][7] She also won several awards for particular children's books including the 1974 Newbery Medal for her novel The Slave Dancer;[8][b] a 1983 National Book Award in category Children's Fiction (paperback) for A Place Apart;[9][c] and the 2008 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for A Portrait of Ivan (1969) in its German-language edition Ein Bild von Ivan.[10][d] Her six novels went out of print in 1992.[3] In the mid-1990s, she enjoyed a revival as her adult fiction was championed by a new generation of American writers.[11]
In 2011, Fox was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame.[12][dead link] She was championed by the author Jonathan Franzen, who saw that some of her books were re-issued.[1]
Personal life and death
In 1943, Fox was living in the household of famed acting coach Stella Adler and became friendly with Marlon Brando, another of Adler's students who was living there.[13][14] She became pregnant and gave the child, Linda Carroll, up for adoption.[1][15] There have been persistent rumors that Brando was in fact Carroll's father,[16] although neither Brando nor Fox ever commented on the matter.[17][18] Carroll, who became an author and psychotherapist, is the mother of musician Courtney Love.[3] Frances Bean Cobain is Fox's great-granddaughter.[19]
Fox married Richard Sigerson, by whom she had two sons. She later married literary critic and translator Martin Greenberg.[5]
Fox was mugged in Jerusalem in 1996 and suffered a head injury that affected her ability to write.[3]
Adaptations
A 1993 Portuguese feature film,[21] Coitado do Jorge,[22] was based on Poor George. Desperate Characters was made into a movie starring Shirley MacLaine in 1971.[citation needed]
Works
Summarize
Perspective
 | This section needs additional citations for verification. (March 2017) |
Children's fiction
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Memoirs
Adult fiction
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See also
Notes
- Fox is also the birth mother of Linda Carroll (b. 1944), who was adopted by an Italian Catholic family. In turn, Carroll is the mother of Courtney Love.
• "MOTHERS & DAUGHTERS: Courtney Love's mom, Linda Carroll, reflects on her daughter and her own birth mother", Neva Chronin, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, February 5, 2006. Retrieved 2012-02-27. - Beside winning the Newbery Medal for The Slave Dancer in 1974, Fox was a runner-up for One-Eyed Cat in 1985. Runner-up books are termed Newbery Honor Books and may display a silver seal.[8]
- Before winning the 1983 children's paperback fiction award for A Place Apart, Fox was a finalist for the overall National Book Award, Children's Literature with Blowfish Live in the Sea in 1971 and The Little Swineherd in 1979.
• "National Book Awards – 1970". NBF. Retrieved 2012-02-08. (Select 1971 and 1979 from the top left menu.) - Besides winning the overall Children's Book prize in 2008 (Ein Bild von Ivan; A Portrait of Ivan, 1969), Fox made the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis Youth Book shortlist in 1988 (Der Schattentänzer; The Slave Dancer, 1974) and Children's Book shortlist in 2002 (Paul ohne Jacob; Radiance Descending, 1997, featuring a brother's Downs syndrome). For the latter and another book by Fox (Jenseits der Lügen; The Eagle Kite, 1995, featuring a father's homosexuality and AIDS) Cornelia Krutz-Arnold won a special prize for translation in 2002.
• (Paula Fox, all listings). DJLP.
References
External links
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