Thomas Berger

[Jughead]

As a huge fan of the author I am always curious as to why his name never seems to come up and why, after 24 novels, his is still little known.

The Reinhart trilogy is fantastic, Little Big Man is lovely, Killing Time is a great meditation on violence and society and Neighbor's is possibly the best anarchic display of black humour penned.

Most of my well-read and literary friends have never heard of him, he (to my knowledge) has enjoyed some critical success but has not been recognized for any awards.

Just curious if any one here has read him and their thoughts.

 

[ja9]

I've only read "Little Big Man". I checked it out from the library and liked it enough that I bought a copy, so it certainly passed the test for me. I just looked him up on the Web to see what else he has written, thinking that I must have read some of his other work, but nothing sounds familiar. I'm going to add him to my reading list and see if I might like any of this other books. I thought that LBM was creative and interesting, and I liked his writing style very much.

I have a theory about why he's not more well known. It's the name - it's so generic that it's really hard to remember. I wonder if he might have a wider audience if he had a fancier name. I've often gone looking for his books in the used book stores, but usually I can only half-recall his name and I wind up looking for the wrong person - Tim Bergin? Tom Lerner? Jim Carter? I'm easily distracted at the book store, and end up walking out with something totally different from what I thought I was looking for. Which is OK, but I'm really going to have to write it down this time!!

 

[Jughead]

He has covered a fair bit of ground stylistically and unfortunately many of his books are hard to track down.

Good starting points would be Neighbors or The Feud (his two best in my opinion) both insightful, condemning of social foibles and funny as hell.
Killing time is a departure but still very interesting.
Arthur Rex is a retelling of the knights of the round table, a tougher read.
The Reinhart series is great beginning with Crazy in Berlin

 

[ja9]

Thanks! I've added your recommendations to my reading list - in writing this time, so there's a chance I will actually remember to look them up. Assuming of course that I can find the list again...