Allegra Goodman (born 1967) is an American writer based in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

Early life and education

Allegra Goodman was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York, and raised in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. The daughter of Lenn and Madeleine Goodman,"Allegra Goodman." ''Contemporary Authors Online''. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Retrieved via ''Biography in Context'' database, 2017-09-22. she was brought up as a Conservative Jew.
/ref> Her mother, who died in 1996, was a professor of

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...

and

women's studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on Feminism, feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining Social constructionism, social and cultural constructs of gender; ...

, then assistant vice president at the University of Hawaii at Manoa for many years, before moving on to

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private university, private research university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provide ...

in the 1990s. Her father, Lenn E. Goodman, is a professor of

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

at Vanderbilt. Goodman wrote and illustrated her first novel at the age of seven. Goodman graduated from Punahou School in 1985. She then went on to

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, where she earned an A.B. degree. She then went on to do graduate work at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, where Goodman earned a Ph.D. degree in English literature, in 1996.

Writing

Goodman's younger sister, Paula Fraenkel, is an oncologist. Fraenkel's experience in research labs is one of the inspirations for Goodman's 2006 novel ''Intuition''. Her short story "La Vita Nuova" was selected for '' The Best American Short Stories 2011'' and was broadcast on

Public Radio International Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States. PRI was one of the main providers of programmi ...

's Selected Shorts in February 2012.

Personal life

Goodman met her husband, David Karger, at Harvard. Both were regulars at Harvard Hillel, and prayed in Harvard Hillel Orthodox

Minyan In Judaism, a ''minyan'' ( ''mīnyān'' , Literal translation, lit. (noun) ''count, number''; pl. ''mīnyānīm'' ) is the quorum of ten Jewish adults required for certain Mitzvah, religious obligations. In more traditional streams of Judaism ...

. Goodman and Karger live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Karger is a professor in computer science at MIT. They have four children, three boys and a girl.

Awards and honors

Bibliography

Novels

* ''

Kaaterskill Falls Kaaterskill Falls is a two-stage waterfall on Spruce Creek (Kaaterskill Creek tributary), Spruce Creek in the eastern Catskill Mountains of New York (state), New York, between the Hamlet (place)#New York, hamlets of Haines Falls, New York, Haines ...

'' ( The Dial Press 1998; paperback Dial Press Trade Paperback 1999) , * ''Paradise Park'' (The Dial Press 2001, Dial Press Trade Paperback 2002) , * ''

Intuition Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning or needing an explanation. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledg ...

'' (The Dial Press 2006), * ''The Other Side of the Island'' (New York: Razorbill, 2008) * ''The Cookbook Collector'' (The Dial Press 2010) * ''The Chalk Artist: A Novel'' (The Dial Press 2017) * '' Sam: A Novel'' (The Dial Press 2023) * ''Isola: A Novel'' (The Dial Press 2025)

Short fiction

;Collections * ''Total Immersion'' (Harper & Row 1989; paperback Dial Press Trade Paperback 1998) , * '' The Family Markowitz'' (Farrar Straus & Giroux 1996; softcover Washington Square Press 1997) , ;StoriesShort stories unless otherwise noted. * * * * * * * * * * * * * ——————— ;Notes

References

External links

Allegra Goodman's webpage

Allegra Goodman profile
a
Bookreporter.com

Profile at The Whiting Foundation

2006 MSNBC article on Allegra Goodman

interview in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

''
Allegra Goodman
entry o
The Literary Encyclopedia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodman, Allegra 1967 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American short story writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American short story writers 21st-century American women writers American women novelists American women short story writers Baalei teshuva Harvard University alumni Jewish American novelists Jewish women writers The New Yorker people Novelists from Hawaii Novelists from Massachusetts Novelists from New York (state) Punahou School alumni Stanford University alumni Writers from Brooklyn Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts