Melanie Thernstrom (born 1964) is an author and contributing writer for the ''

New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

'' who frequently writes about murders and crime.

Biography

Thernstrom attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, where she graduated with highest honors in English.New York Times wedding announcement
2008-01-21. Retrieved on 2008-06-04. She received an MFA in creative writing at

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teac ...

and taught creative writing at Cornell, Harvard, and in the MFA program at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

Books

Thernstrom's senior thesis was entitled ''Mistakes of Metaphor'', an account of the mysterious disappearance and murder of her best friend, Bibi Lee, three years earlier, for which Lee’s boyfriend was eventually convicted on the basis of a confession which he recanted. Thernstrom's poetry professor showed the thesis to literary agents, and she soon received an advance of $367,000. ''The Dead Girl'', which was published by Pocket Books in 1990, was praised by literary critics such as

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking worl ...

Harold Brodkey Harold Brodkey (October 25, 1930 – January 26, 1996), born Aaron Roy Weintraub, was an American short-story writer and novelist. Life Brodkey was the second child born in Staunton, Illinois, to Max Weintraub and Celia Glazer Weintraub (1899- ...

and

Helen Vendler Helen Hennessy Vendler (born April 30, 1933) is an American literary critic and is Porter University Professor Emerita at Harvard University. Life and career Helen Hennessy Vendler was born on April 30, 1933, in Boston, Massachusetts, to George ...

as reimagining the true crime genre with its use of literary theory and reflections on memory and metaphor. Thernstrom's second book, ''Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder'', was about

Sinedu Tadesse upright=0.8 , Sinedu Tadesse On May 28, 1995, Sinedu Tadesse, a junior at Harvard College, stabbed her roommate, Trang Phuong Ho, to death, then committed suicide. The incident may have resulted in changes to living conditions at Harvard. Bac ...

, a Harvard junior from

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Er ...

who murdered her

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...

ese roommate and then committed suicide while living at

Dunster House Dunster House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University. Built in 1930, it is one of the first two dormitories at Harvard University constructed under President Abbott Lawrence Lowell's House Plan and one of the sev ...

in 1995. In contrast to ''The Dead Girl'', ''Halfway Heaven'' explores murder from the point of view of the murderer. Thernstrom had met Tadesse while teaching an autobiographical writing course at Harvard. After her death, Thernstrom reported on it for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...

'', traveling to Ethiopia and obtaining access to Tadesse's diaries which described her struggles against growing mental illness and her failed attempts to get help from the University. ''Halfway Heaven'' was praised by

Mikal Gilmore Mikal Gilmore (born February 9, 1951 in Portland, Oregon) is an American writer and music journalist. Writing career In the 1970s Gilmore began writing music articles and criticism for ''Rolling Stone'' magazine. In 1999, his ''Night Beat: A Shado ...

and

Elaine Showalter Elaine Showalter (born January 21, 1941) is an American literary critic, feminist, and writer on cultural and social issues. She influenced feminist literary criticism in the United States academia, developing the concept and practice of gynoc ...

. In 1999, Thernstrom wrote a lengthy '' Vanity Fair'' article on murdered college student

Matthew Shepard Matthew Wayne Shepard (December 1, 1976 – October 12, 1998) was a gay American student at the University of Wyoming who was beaten, tortured, and left to die near Laramie on the night of October 6, 1998. He was taken by rescuers to ...

. Her pieces in the ''New York Times Magazine'' have included ones on the

Lord's Resistance Army The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), also known as the Lord's Resistance Movement, is a rebel group and heterodox Christian group which operates in northern Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Co ...

in Northern

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The south ...

narrative medicine Narrative Medicine is the discipline of applying the skills used in analyzing literature to interviewing patients. The premise of narrative medicine is that how a patient speaks about his or her illness or complaint is analogous to how literature ...

, physical pain, high-end

matchmakers Matchmakers is a brand of chocolate sticks currently owned and made by Nestlé. Thin, twig-like and brittle, they were first launched in 1968 by Rowntree's and were one-third of the length they are now - about the length of a match. For many yea ...

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...

fugitive A fugitive (or runaway) is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from jail, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals. A fugitive from justice, also kn ...

s, and a personal essay on losing an art inheritance. Her work has also appeared in ''

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

'' magazine, ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ''

Food & Wine ''Food & Wine'' is an American monthly magazine published by Dotdash Meredith. It was founded in 1978 by Ariane and Michael Batterberry. It features recipes, cooking tips, travel information, restaurant reviews, chefs, wine pairings and sea ...

'', ''

Travel + Leisure ''Travel + Leisure'' is a travel magazine based in New York City, New York. Published 12 times a year, it has 4.8 million readers, according to its corporate media kit. It is published by Dotdash Meredith, a subsidiary of IAC, with trademark ...

'', ''

Elle ''Elle'' (stylized ''ELLE'') is a worldwide women's magazine of French origin that offers a mix of fashion and beauty content, together with culture, society and lifestyle. The title means "she" or "her" in French. ''Elle'' is considered the ...

'', and other publications. Her food essays have appeared in ''Best American Food Writing 2001'' and ''2004''.

Personal life

Thernstrom is the daughter of

Abigail Thernstrom Abigail Thernstrom (September 14, 1936 – April 10, 2020) was an American political scientist and a leading conservative scholar on race relations, voting rights and education. She was an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, ...

, a prominent political scientist, and

Stephan Thernstrom Stephan Thernstrom (born November 5, 1934) is an American academic and historian who is the Winthrop Research Professor of History Emeritus at Harvard University. He is a specialist in ethnic and social history and was the editor of the ''Harvard ...

, the Winthrop Professor of American History at Harvard. She lives with her husband and two children in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was ...

Footnotes

External links

Melanie Thernstrom's Halfway Heaven
Exclusive interview, print excerpt and author reading; plus an essay: "English Only". {{DEFAULTSORT:Thernstrom, Melanie 1964 births Living people Cornell University faculty Harvard University alumni American people of Swedish descent University of California, Irvine faculty American crime writers The New York Times Magazine Cornell University alumni Harvard University faculty Women crime writers 20th-century American writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American writers 21st-century American women writers American women academics