Berger, Thomas

(US, 1924– )

Berger was born in Cincinnati and educated at the universities of Cincinnati and Columbia. He worked as an editor before becoming a full-time writer in the 1950s. Begin with Little Big Man (1964), which, like most of his writing, offers an inventive critique of contemporary America. Narrated by the 111-year-old Jack Crabb, a white who has lived among the Cheyenne Indians, the book irreverently surveys a century of American history. A novel sequence beginning with Crazy in Berlin (1958) and ending with Reinhart's Women (1981) charts the career of Carlo Reinhart, an innocent vulnerably abroad in post-war America. Berger's other novels include Robinson Crews (1994), a recasting of the Robinson Crusoe story, in which an unhappy misfit survives a plane crash in the wilds and fulfils himself by rescuing a woman fleeing her abusive husband.

Philip Roth, Joseph Heller  DH