Mentor: A Memoir - Softcover

Grimes, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0982504896 ISBN 13: 9780982504895

Publisher: Tin House Books, 2010

Synopsis

Booklist reviewMentor: A Memoir Grimes' candid and finely wrought memoir is at once a self-portrait of the writer as an anxious MFA student and homage to his guiding light, Frank Conroy, the legendary director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the crucible from which so many extraordinary writers emerged, from Flannery O'Connor to Kurt Vonnegut to Marilynne Robinson. Grimes was in his thirties when he arrived, weary of waiting tables and writing in grim isolation. Conroy had unshakable faith in Grimes, and the two formed a profound bond. Writing with the qualities Conroy tirelessly championed--"meaning, sense, clarity"--Grimes not only expresses boundless love and gratitude for Conroy, he also unveils with rare specificity the strange trance borne of concentrating on the endless possibilities of language, and the initial elation and eventual complications of publication. Fascinating literary anecdotes give way to somber revelations of the nervous breakdowns Conroy and Grimes each endured. Grimes' staggering self-critique, keen tribute to Conroy as writer and mentor, and hard-won insights into the true demands of writing and the deep resonance of literature are arresting and cautionary, inspiring and affecting. -- Donna Seaman

About this title

From the Author

From now on, anyone who dreams of becoming a novelist will need to read Tom Grimes's brutally honest and wonderful "Mentor." While there have been plenty of books on how to write, or how to get published, or how to promote your work, as well as a number of triumphalist accounts of "making it," this is a story of what it's like to just miss succeeding." -- Michael Dirda, The Washington Post                                                                                                                                                                                              Mentor is a magnificent portrait of two fiction writers, rendered in fine, piercing and ruthless prose -- and, above all, a love letter to a teacher. -- Elizabeth McCracken

From the Back Cover

"It's astonishing how much insight, passion, pain, joy, self-doubt, and sheer love Tom Grimes has managed to pack into this tightly made memoir of his relationship with the writer Frank Conroy.  Not only does MENTOR offer an honest and compelling account of the struggles of a writer at the onset of his career, but this immaculately composed memoir also draws an enduring and eerily lifelike portrait of Frank Conroy.  MENTOR is a beautiful, beautiful book -- a monument both the Frank Conroy and to the writer's terrifying quest for artistic excellence."  Tim O'Brien

About this edition

• Publisher: Tin House Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0982504896
• ISBN 13: 9780982504895
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256