Chris Bohjalian

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Chris Bohjalian
Born	White Plains, New York
Occupation	Novelist
Genres	Fiction

Chris Bohjalian is an American novelist.

A summa cum laude graduate of Amherst College (where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society), Bohjalian and his wife lived in Brooklyn, New York until 1986, when they decided to move to Vermont in order to retreat from city life. Here, Bohjalian began a weekly newspaper column entitled "Idyll Banter", in which he chronicled his everyday experiences.

The column can be read online at www.burlingtonfreepress.com or on his web site.

His first novel, A Killing in the Real World, was published in 1988. It wasn't until 1998, however, when Oprah Winfrey selected Midwives - a Publishers Weekly "Best Book" - for her popular book club, that he reached a wide audience. Her focus on the book, which centers on a small town midwife who becomes embroiled in a legal battle after performing a Caesarean section on a patient, propelled it to Number One on the New York Times bestseller list. It later was filmed by the Lifetime Movie Network with Sissy Spacek in the lead role.

Other novels of his that have become New York Times bestsellers include "The Law of Similars," "Before You Know Kindness," "The Double Bind," and "Skeletons at the Feast."

Bohjalian's novels tend to center on ordinary people who find themselves trapped in extraordinarily difficult situations due to unforeseen circumstances often triggered by other parties. His most recent book, "Skeletons at the Feast," is considered a departure because it is a love story set in the last six months of World War II in Poland and Germany.

He won the New England Book Award in 2002. "The Double Bind" was a Barnes & Noble Recommends Selection in 2007.

In addition to "Midwives" becoming a movie in 2000, his novel "Past the Bleachers" became a Hallmark movie in 1995.

He lives with his wife and daughter in Lincoln, Vermont, where he is active in the local church and the Vermont theater community -- always off-stage, never on.

[edit] Published works

• Skeletons at the Feast (2008)
• The Double Bind (2007)
• Before You Know Kindness (2004)
• Idyll Banter: Weekly Excursions to a Very Small Town (2003)
• The Buffalo Soldier (2002)
• Trans-Sister Radio (2000)
• The Law of Similars (1999)
• Midwives (1997)
• Water Witches (1995)
• Past the Bleachers (1992)
• Hangman (1991)
• A Killing in the Real World (1988)

[edit] External links

• Official website
• Interview with Chris Bohjalian in which he discusses his weekly column, his novels, and "neat freak" tendencies.
• Interview with Chris Bohjalian in which he talks about his youth, his column and his novels.