Hjortsberg, William
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1941-2017) US screenwriter and author, much of whose work – like his first novel, Alp (1969), or his third, Toro! Toro! Toro! (1974) – hovers Equipoisally between a mildly gonzo Western American Magic Realism and genuine Fabulation. Gray Matters (1971), which is sf, grounds its fantastic episodes in a future Utopia where people are reborn (see Reincarnation) from entombment as Hive-Mind "Cerebromorphs" within an enormous Cybernetic complex only when they have achieved some transcendence of their personal identities; with SymBiography (1973 chap), also sf, it was assembled as Odd Corners: The Slip-Stream World of William Hjortsberg (omni 2004). Falling Angel (November-December 1978 Playboy; 1978; exp as coll 1996) grippingly marries detection and horror in a Secret Sharer tale of striking grimness [for Secret Sharer see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]; it was filmed as Angel Heart (1987) to his own script, and directed by Alan Parker. Tales and Fables (coll 1985 chap) assembles full-scale Fabulations; and Nevermore (1994) cunningly opposes Harry Houdini (1874-1926) and Arthur Conan Doyle in an intensely coloured 1920s New York, where something like the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, or a ghostlike entity inspired by Poe, is recreating murderers out of his work. [JC]
William Reinhold Hjortsberg
born New York: 23 February 1941
died Livingston, Montana: 22 April 2017
works
- Alp (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969) [hb/Paul Bacon]
- Gray Matters (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971) [hb/Paul Bacon]
- SymBiography (Fremont, Michigan: Sumac Press, 1973) [chap: hb/Ray Hoagland]
- Odd Corners: The Slip-Stream World of William Hjortsberg (Washington, D C: Shoemaker and Hoard, 2004) [omni of the above two: hb/Kimberly Glyder]
- Toro! Toro! Toro! (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974) [hb/Paul Bacon]
- Falling Angel (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978) [first appeared November-December 1978 Playboy: hb/Stanislaw Zagorski]
- Tales & Fables (Los Angeles, California: Sylvester and Orphanos, 1985) [coll: chap: illus/Vance Gerry: hb/]
- Nevermore (New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994) [hb/Rick Pracher]
nonfiction
- Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan (Berkeley, California: Counterpoint, 2012) [nonfiction: Richard Brautigan: hb/]
links
- William Hjortsberg
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- The Encyclopedia of Fantasy: Secret Sharer
- Picture Gallery
previous versions of this entry