Gilbert Sorrentino RIP 1929-2006

Gilbert Sorrentino was a good friend of mine. I knew him for almost twenty years. He was a big inspiration to me as a writer. I became good friends with his son, Chris. I saw him do a reading at the Brooklyn Library in November 2004. Sorrentino made me want to become a writer when I read Mulligan Stew in 1984. His other books are Steelwork, The Sky Changes, Blue Pastorale, and many more.



Gilbert Sorrentino, author, critic, professor

NEW YORK -- Gilbert Sorrentino, a Brooklyn-born poet, novelist, literary critic and professor whose erudite work drew frequent praise and occasional scorn but never a wide audience, died on Thursday in Brooklyn. He was 77. The cause was lung cancer, said his son Christopher. Sorrentino was a tenured professor for two decades at Stanford University, where he taught English literature and creative writing, even though he had never finished college. Of more than 20 literary works, his most commercially successful was the novel "Mulligan Stew," which was named by The New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of 1979. -- new york times