Cara Hoffman

Cara Hoffman is a New York City-based writer. She is the author of three critically acclaimed novels, So Much Pretty (2011), Be Safe, I Love You (2014), and Running (2017). Her essays have been featured in the New York Times, the New York Times Book Review, Paris Review, Salon, LitHub, Marie Claire, and NPR. As a lecturer, she has spoken at Columbia University and at Oxford University's Global Scholar's Symposium. Hoffman was a visiting writer at St. John's University and at Goddard College. She has taught writing and literature at Bronx Community College, Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, and Stone Coast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine.

Cara Hoffman
BornNew York State
Occupationnovelist, journalist
NationalityUnited States
Alma materGoddard College
Notable worksSo Much Pretty
Website
carahoffman.com

Life and career

Hoffman grew up in upstate New York. She dropped out of high school and spent the next three years traveling and working in Europe and the Middle East. She did not attend college, and instead became a newspaper reporter covering crime and environmental politics.

Hoffman worked for a number of publications, including Fifth Estate, the longest running anti-authoritarian magazine in North America.

In 2009 Hoffman completed an MFA in fiction at Goddard College.[1]

In 2017, she received a MacDowell Fellowship,[2] and in 2018, she was named an Albee Fellow from the Edward F. Albee Foundation.[3]

Books
  • Hoffman, Cara (2011). So Much Pretty. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781451616774.
  • Hoffman, Cara (2014). Be Safe I Love You. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781451641325.
  • Hoffman, Cara (2018). Running. Simor & Schuster. ISBN 9781476757582.

So Much Pretty

So Much Pretty was met with positive reviews. Publisher's Weekly gave it a Starred Review, and Booklist compared it to The Lovely Bones and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.[4] The Los Angeles Times found the build-up of suspense worthwhile and said, "To say more about Hoffman's constantly surprising story is to reveal too much, but the payoff is more than worth the slow-building suspense".[4][5]

The New York Times wrote:

"For all the passion in this intense narrative, Hoffman writes with a restraint that makes poetry of pain. She also shows a mastery of her craft by developing the story over 17 years and narrating it from multiple perspectives. While each has a different take on the horrific events that no one saw coming, the people who live in this insular place remain willfully blind to their own contributions to the deeper causes that made this tragedy almost inevitable".[6]

The New York Times Book Review later called the novel the best suspense novel of 2011.[6]

Be Safe I Love You

Hoffman's second novel was published in April 2014, receiving critical praise and a nomination for the 2015 Folio Prize.[7] George Stephanopoulos interviewed Hoffman about the book for ABC News on August 29, 2014.[8] Library Journal gave it a starred review and called it, "a contemporary version of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried with a female protagonist."[9]

The New York Times Book Review wrote:

“A finely tuned piece of fiction . . . Be Safe I Love You is a painful exploration of the devastation wrought by combat even when the person returns from war without a scratch. The story—written with such lucid detail it's hard to believe the main character is an invention—suggests the damage starts long before the soldier reports for duty. . . . In crystalline language that conveys both the desolation of the Iraqi desert and the north country of New York State . . . this book is a reminder that art and love are all that can keep us from despair.”[10]

Hoffman wrote a related op-ed piece on female veterans for the New York Times entitled The Things She Carried which was published on March 31, 2014,[11] and another on the human cost of war for SALON in July 2014.[12]

Be Safe I Love You was selected as a recipient of the 2015 Sundance Institute Global Filmmaking Award.[13] The project will be directed by Haifaa al-Mansour.

Running

Hoffman's third novel, Running, was published in February 2017 by Simon & Schuster and edited by Ira Silverberg.

On March 17, 2017, Justin Torres wrote in The New York Times Book Review:

"Hoffman impressively evokes the combination of nihilism, idealism, rootlessness, psychic and economic necessity, lust and love that might set a young person adrift. Unlike the runaway heroes of many queer narratives these characters are not cast out but looking to get lost...The Athens on display here is peopled with rebels and runaways of all kinds, idealists, revolutionary operatives, con men, wayward young scholars, squatters...In Bridey and Milo Hoffman has created memorable anti-heroes: tough and resourceful scarred, feral and sexy. The book and the characters refuse to conform and Running like all good outlaw literature takes sharp aim at the contemporary culture’s willingness to do so."[14]

Running was listed as a The New York Times Editor's Choice,[15] a "Most Anticipated Book of 2017" selection by The Millions,[16] one of Entertainment Weekly's "Best New Books" one of Esquire's "Best Books of 2017",[17] and one of Autostraddle's "Queer and Feminist Books to read in 2017"[18]

Publications

References
  1. "Cara Hoffman - Goddard College". Goddard College. 2014-09-16. Retrieved 2018-05-22.
  2. "MacDowell Artist Page". MacDowell. Retrieved 28 December 2020.
  3. "The Edward F. Albee Foundation". Albee Foundation. Retrieved 28 December 2020.
  4. "The Inner Sanctum - Cara Hoffman", 2011, webpage: ISSS Archived 2011-07-06 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. "The Informationist | Dark passages: Hungry for justice", Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2011, webpage: LAT9.
  6. "A Trophy Wife's Tale", by Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times (Sunday Book Review), March 11, 2011, webpage: NYT3.
  7. Flood, Alison (2014-12-15). "Folio prize reveals 80 titles in contention for 2015 award". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-03-13.
  8. News, ABC. "Video: Burgers & Books: George Stephanopoulos with Cara Hoffman". ABC News. Retrieved 2018-03-13.
  9. "Fiction Reviews" Library Journal, February 1, 2014, webpage: LJ Archived 2014-06-06 at the Wayback Machine.
  10. "The Things She Carries", by Alissa J. Rubin, The New York Times (Sunday Book Review), May 23, 2014, webpage: NYT3.
  11. Hoffman, Cara (2014-03-31). "Opinion | The Things She Carried". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-03-13.
  12. "Stop calling soldiers "heroes": It stops us from seeing them as human — and dismisses their..." Salon. 2014-07-20. Retrieved 2018-03-13.
  13. "Sundance Institute Selects Global Filmmaking Awards Presented by AJ+ At the 2015 Sundance Film Festival". www.sundance.org. Retrieved 2018-03-13.
  14. Torres, Justin (2017-03-17). "Misfits Burn Fast and Bright in This Tale of '80s Athens". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  15. "11 New Books We Recommend This Week". The New York Times. 2017-03-23. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-05-26.
  16. "Most Anticipated: The Great 2017 Book Preview - The Millions". The Millions. 2017-01-04. Retrieved 2017-05-26.
  17. "The Best Books of 2017 (So Far)". Esquire. 2017-05-02. Retrieved 2017-05-26.
  18. "45 Queer and Feminist Books You Need To Read in Early 2017". Autostraddle. 2017-01-16. Retrieved 2017-05-26.
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