You, or the Invention of Memory

Jonathan David Baumbach was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 5, 1933. He received a bachelor's degree in English at Brooklyn College in 1955 and a master's degree in playwriting at Columbia University in 1956. After serving in the Army, he received a Ph.D. in English and American literature at Stanford University. He taught at several universities before joining the faculty of Brooklyn College in 1972, where he helped establish a master's program in creative writing.

His first novel, A Man to Conjure With, was published in 1965. His other novels included What Comes Next, Reruns, Babble, Chez Charlotte and Emily, Separate Hours, Seven Wives: A Romance, and Dreams of Molly. He wrote four short story collections including The Life and Times of Major Fiction. He and Peter Spielberg created the Fiction Collective, a publishing house run by authors. Baumbach also wrote about film for Partisan Review and reviewed books for The Times and other publications. He died on March 28, 2019 at the age of 85.

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