Ronald Verlin Cassill

Infobox Writer
name = Ronald Verlin Cassill


caption =
birthdate = May 17, 1919
birthplace = Cedar Falls, Iowa|
deathdate = death date and age|2002|3|25|1919|5|17
deathplace = Providence, Rhode Island
occupation = novelist, short story writer, editor, painter, lithographer
genre = Fiction
movement =
nationality = United States
influences = Benjamin Constant, D. H. Lawrence, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, James Joyce
influenced =
website =

Ronald Verlin Cassill, usually called R. V. Cassill, (May 17, 1919 – March 25, 2002) was a prolific American novelist, short story writer, reviewer, editor, painter, and lithographer.

Biography

Born in 1919 in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Cassill earned a B.A. in art at The University of Iowa in 1939 where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He also earned his M.A. at Iowa in 1947. Between earning his B.A. and M.A., Cassill served in the United States Army, from 1942 to 1946 where he served in the south Pacific and attained the rank of Lieutenant. He briefly served as an instructor at The University of Iowa before attending the Sorbonne for a year as a Fulbright Fellow beginning in 1952. Cassill worked as an editor for the Western Review of Iowa City from 1951 to 1952, Collier's Encyclopedia from 1953 to 1954, and Dude and Gent in 1958. He became a lecturer at both Columbia University and the New School for Social Research in 1957 until he returned to the University of Iowa in the same capacity in 1960. His next position was as writer-in-residence at Purdue University from 1965 to 1966. Cassill was appointed Associate Professor at Brown University in 1966 and then to Professor of English in 1972 where he remained until his retired from teaching as Professor emeritus in 1983. In addition to his teaching Cassill served as U.S. Information Service lecturer in Europe from 1975 to 1976. Cassill is also a painter and lithographer, mounting exhibitions in Chicago in 1946 and 1948 as well as in New York in 1970.

Cassill's papers are archived at the Mugar Memorial Library at Boston University.

Awards

Cassill received the Atlantic Monthly's "Firsts" prize for a short story in 1947. He was given a Rockefeller grant in 1954 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1968.

Work

Cassill's extremely prolific career and wide array of interests make it difficult to summarize the thematic nature and concerns of his work. His stories and novels concern bucolic life in the midwest, the life of the artist or academic, and at times extend into autobiography. A preoccupation with the fates of couples, in alienation and union, is exhibited in much of his fiction, as is the warring of emotional and rational impulses in individuals and pairs. A strong visual identification is intrinsic in his prose, likely due to his training as a visual artist. His most famous novels were "Doctor Cobb's Game " and "Clem Anderson" but the sheer breadth of his writing and his pervasive influence as a teacher have secured Cassill's legacy in modern fiction.

Bibliography

Novels

*"The Eagle on the Coin" (1950)
*"Dorimtory Women" (1953)
*"The Left Bank of Desire" (1955) (with Eric Protter)
*"A Taste of Sin" (1955)
*"The Hungering Shame" (1956)
*"The Wound of Love" (1956)
*"An Affair to Remember" (1957) (as Owen Aherne)
*"Naked Morning" (1957)
*"Man on Fire" (1957) (as Owen Aherne)
*"The Buccaneer" (1958)
*"Lustful Summer" (1958)
*"The Tempest" (1959)
*"The Wife Next Door" (1960)
*"Clem Anderson" (1960)
*"My Sister's Keeper" (1961)
*"Night School" (1961)
*"Nurses' Quarters" (1962)
*"Pretty Leslie" (1963)
*"The President" (1964)
*"La Vie Passionée of Rodney Buckthorne: A Tale of the Great American's Last Rally and Curious Death" (1968)
*"Doctor Cobb's Game" (1969)
*"The Goss Women" (1974)
*"Hoyt's Child" (1976)
*"Labors of Love" (1980)
*"Flame" (1980)
*"After Goliath" (1985)
*"The Unknown Soldier" (1991)

hort stories

*"15 x 3" (1957) (with Herbert Gold and James B. Hall)
*"The Father and Other Stories" (1965)
*"The Happy Marriage and Other Stories" (1965)
*"Three Stories" (1982)
*"Patrimonies" (1988)
*"Collected Stories" (1989)

Other

*"The General Said "Nuts" (1955)
*"Writing Fiction" (1975)
*"In an Iron Time: Statements and Reiterations: Essays" (1967)
*"Intro 1-3" (1968-1970) (editor)
*"Intro 4" (1972) (editor, with Walton Beacham)
*"Norton Anthology of Short Fiction" (1978) (editor)
*"Norton Anthology of Contemporary Fiction" (1998) (editor with Joyce Carol Oates)

References

External links

* [http://www.americanartists.org/art/article_interview_with_rv_cassill.htm Interview with Cassill] from 1999