John D. Casey (born 1939 in

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...

) is an American novelist and translator. He won the U.S.

National Book Award for Fiction The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987 the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, but ...

in 1989 for ''

Spartina ''Spartina'' is a taxon of plants in the grass family, frequently found in coastal salt marshes. Its species are commonly known as cordgrass or cord-grass, and are native to the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean in western and southern Europe, nort ...

''.

Life

Casey went to school at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

, Harvard Law School, and the

Iowa Writers' Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative W ...

at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 col ...

. He currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. Among others, writer Breece D'J Pancake studied under him. Casey's papers reside at the

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia is a research library that specializes in American history and literature, history of Virginia and the southeastern United States, the history of the Universit ...

at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

(UVA).

Family

Casey's brother-in-law is Nobel Prize-winning physician

Harold E. Varmus Harold Eliot Varmus (born December 18, 1939) is an American Nobel Prize-winning scientist. He is currently the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a senior associate at the New York Genome Center. He was ...

. Casey's father was former Massachusetts representative Joseph E. Casey. Casey has two adult daughters from his first marriage to novelist Jane Barnes: Nell Casey and

Maud Casey Maud Casey is an American novelist, and professor of creative writing at University of Maryland, College Park. Life She is the daughter of novelist John Casey. She graduated from University of Arizona with an M.F.A. She won a Guggenheim Fello ...

. Maud is a published author in her own right, with two well-reviewed novels and a collection of short stories to her credit. Nell Casey is the editor of the essay collection ''Unholy Ghost'' on depression and creativity, including essays by herself and her sister, and editor of a second essay collection, ''An Uncertain Inheritance'', by contributors caring for family through illness and death. He also has two daughters, Clare and Julia, from his second marriage to artist and calligrapher Rosamond Casey. In 2012, John Casey married social media executive Roberts Browning Fray (who went by Robin Fray Carey professionally), whom he first met when she studied English at UVA in 1976. Casey was widowed on December 17, 2015, when Robin Fray Carey was killed in an automobile accident in Fauquier County, Virginia. Casey is the uncle of journalist and writer Alex Kuczynski, whose parents are his sister Jane and his former brother-in-law

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski Pedro is a masculine given name. Pedro is the Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician name for ''Peter''. Its French equivalent is Pierre while its English and Germanic form is Peter. The counterpart patronymic surname of the name Pedro, meaning " ...

, who was

President of Peru The president of Peru ( es, link=no, presidente del Perú), officially called the president of the Republic of Peru ( es, link=no, presidente de la República del Perú), is the head of state and head of government of Peru. The president is th ...

from 2016 to 2018.

Title IX complaints

In November 2017, Casey was accused of sexually harassing Emma C. Eisenberg, a graduate of the University of Virginia's M.F.A. program. A second anonymous M.F.A. student filed an additional

Title IX Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...

complaint at the same time. Several weeks later, a third student, Sharon Harrigan, accused Casey of sexual harassment and gender bias. On November 30, 2017, the university's Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights announced that Casey would not be teaching during the spring 2018 semester, nor would he be advising or mentoring students. In December 2018, a UVA investigation found sufficient evidence that Casey kissed and inappropriately touched a female undergraduate student in 2001. The investigator also found that, "nearly 30 years ago" (approximately 1989), Casey made a sexual advance toward one of his female graduate students. Ultimately, the disciplinary panel determined that Casey was "unfit for continued teaching responsibilities" and made a unanimous recommendation to terminate his employment. However, Casey retired before the sanction could be carried out. In March 2019, Casey was found responsible for additional Title IX violations in a separate UVA investigation. Among the supported allegations, Casey used the word "cunt" while teaching, called a student a "sexy Irish pirate", commented regularly on female students' appearances, and showed up uninvited to a female student's house and "was overly critical and hostile to her when she rebuffed him". The panel recommended that Casey be permanently banned from UVA property and made ineligible for paid or unpaid UVA employment.

Awards

* 1989

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

for his novel ''

''"National Book Awards – 1989"

National Book Foundation The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established, "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America". Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: 'The Joy Luc ...

. Retrieved 2012-03-27.
(With essay by Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) * 1991

Rome Prize The Rome Prize is awarded by the American Academy in Rome, in Rome, Italy. Approximately thirty scholars and artists are selected each year to receive a study fellowship at the academy. Prizes have been awarded annually since 1921, with a hiatus ...

* 1993 "Mildred and Harold Strauss Living" Award from the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

Works

Fiction

* ''An American Romance'', Atheneum (1977) * ''Testimony and Demeanor'', Knopf (1979) * ''Spartina'', Knopf (1989) * ''Supper at the Black Pearl'', Lord John Press (1996) * ''The Half-life of Happiness'', Knopf (1998) * ''Compass Rose'', Knopf, (2010)

Non-fiction

* ''Room For Improvement: Notes on a Dozen Lifelong Sports'', Knopf (2011) * ''Beyond the First Draft: The Art of Fiction'', W. W. Norton & Company (2014)

Translations

* *

References

External links

*
"'U.Va. Profiles' Features Award-Winning Author John Casey", ''UVa Today''

John Casey author spotlight at Random House of Canada
{{DEFAULTSORT:Casey, John 1939 births Living people 20th-century American novelists National Book Award winners University of Iowa alumni Harvard Law School alumni Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty Italian–English translators 21st-century American novelists 20th-century American translators 21st-century American translators American male novelists 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Novelists from Iowa Harvard College alumni