Robert Daniel Menaker (September 17, 1941 – October 26, 2020) was an American fiction writer and editor. He worked with the MFA program at

Stony Brook Southampton Stony Brook Southampton is a campus location of Stony Brook University, located in Southampton, New York, between the Shinnecock Indian Reservation and Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on the eastern end of Long Island. History Southampton Colleg ...

and as a consultant for

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. The company operates approximately 600 retail stores across the United States. Barnes & Noble operates mainly through its B ...

Bookstores.

Personal life

Menaker was born in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

to Robert Menaker — son of a Russian Jewish immigrant — and Mary R. Grace, who was the chief copy editor at ''

Fortune Fortune may refer to: General * Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck * Luck * Wealth * Fate * Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling * Fortune, in a fortune cookie Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Fortune'' (19 ...

'' magazine. He attended Little Red School House in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...

and Nyack High School in

Rockland County, New York Rockland County is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the county's population is 338,329, making it the state' ...

, studied philosophy and poetry at

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the e ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, and obtained a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

in English from

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

. Menaker's father was a communist who was additionally alleged to be a Soviet intelligence agent, and Menaker described himself as an

anarcho-syndicalist Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade unions as both ...

. Menaker married Katherine Bouton in 1980. They had two children: a daughter, Elizabeth, and a son, Will, who is a co-host of the podcast ''

Chapo Trap House ''Chapo Trap House'' (also referred to as ''Chapo'') is an American socialist political comedy podcast launched in March 2016 and hosted by Will Menaker, Felix Biederman, Matt Christman, and Amber A'Lee Frost. It is produced by Chris Wade. The ...

''. Menaker died from pancreatic cancer on October 26, 2020, at his home in New Marlborough, Massachusetts.

Career

Menaker was a fiction editor at ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' for twenty years and had material published in the magazine frequently. In 1995 he was hired by

Harold Evans Sir Harold Matthew Evans (28 June 192823 September 2020) was a British-American journalist and writer. In his career in his native Britain, he was editor of ''The Sunday Times'' from 1967 to 1981, and its sister title ''The Times'' for a year f ...

as Senior Literary Editor at

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

and later became Executive Editor-in-Chief, working with such writers as

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie ( ; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British and American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern wor ...

, Colum McCann,

Elizabeth Strout Elizabeth Strout (born January 6, 1956) is an American novelist and author. She is widely known for her works in literary fiction and her descriptive characterization. She was born and raised in Portland, Maine, and her experiences in her yout ...

, and

Nassim Taleb Nassim Nicholas Taleb (; alternatively ''Nessim ''or'' Nissim''; born 12 September 1960) is a Lebanese-American essayist, mathematical statistician, former option trader, risk analyst, and aphorist. His work concerns problems of randomness ...

. After leaving Random House in 2007, he became the host for a web-based book show called "Titlepage" in 2008.

Awards

*PEN/O. Henry Award for Short Fiction: "The Good Left" 1982 *PEN/O. Henry Award for Short Fiction: "The Good Left" 1984 *New York Times Notable Book: ''The Treatment'' 1998

Publications

*''Friends and Relations: A Collection of Stories'' - 1976 *''The Worst'' (with Charles McGrath) - 1979 *''The Old Left and Other Stories'' - 1987 *''The Treatment'' (novel) - 1998 *''A Good Talk: The Story and Skill of Conversation'' - 2011 *''My Mistake: A Memoir'' - 2013 *"The Committee: The Story of the 1976 Union Drive at the New Yorker Magazine" - (article, audiobook) 2015 *''The African Svelte: Ingenious Misspellings that Make Surprising Sense'' - 2016 *''Terminalia: Poems'' - 2021

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Menaker, Daniel 1941 births 2020 deaths 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century anarchists 21st-century American journalists 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century anarchists American anarchist writers American editors American male journalists American male non-fiction writers American male short story writers American people of Russian-Jewish descent Anarcho-syndicalists Deaths from pancreatic cancer in Massachusetts Johns Hopkins University alumni Journalists from New York City Little Red School House alumni The New Yorker people Nyack High School alumni Swarthmore College alumni Writers from Manhattan