The character arc of Andrew Solomon
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 30 October 1963 in New York City, the eldest son, grandson of a Jewish immigrant who came from Romania in 1900. Between then and now sit journalism for the major American magazines on subjects from Soviet artists to the cultural rebirth of Afghanistan, his mother's death at the end of a long illness which he wrote about, a book about the condition he has lived with that won the 2001 National Book Award and was a Pulitzer finalist, a second book built from a decade of interviews that won six major prizes, three professorships, and the presidency of a writers' organisation. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Andrew Solomon?
He wrote the atlas of the thing that was happening to him.
His paternal grandfather was Jewish and came to the United States from Romania in 1900. He grew up in New York, the eldest son of a pharmaceutical company chairman and his wife, and became a writer, publishing in the major American magazines on an unusually wide spread of subjects: Soviet artists, the cultural rebirth of Afghanistan, deaf politics, and the one he is known for.
He wrote an essay about his family being present at his mother's planned death, at the end of a long illness with ovarian cancer. It is the kind of thing most writers never publish about their own family, and it set the pattern for what he does: go to the hardest material available, including his own, and stay there long enough to be useful.
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression is his account of the illness he has lived with himself, told across history, medicine, culture and his own experience. It won the National Book Award in 2001, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2002, and was named in a British newspaper's hundred best books of the decade.
Then he did something even harder and slower. Far from the Tree is built from ten years of interviews with families whose children are profoundly unlike them: deaf children of hearing parents, children with Down syndrome, dwarfism, autism, schizophrenia, children who are prodigies, children conceived in rape, children who commit crimes. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2012 and five further major prizes, including one for media in a just society, one for peace and one from a medical research foundation.
He is a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University Medical Center, an adjunct professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, a lecturer at Yale School of Medicine, and a past president of an American writers' organisation. He lives in New York and London.
The moments
Andrew Solomon's timeline.
The 1970s
A grandfather off a boat
Everyday. Two generations from a boat, and a New York childhood.
The 1990s
He writes for everybody
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Soviet painters, Afghanistan, deaf politics. He would write about anything.
His mother dies
Setback, and it changed everything. He wrote about his own mother's death, which almost nobody does.
The illness itself
Setback, and it changed everything. The subject found him before he chose it.
The 2000s
The National Book Award
Milestone, and it changed everything. The National Book Award, for a book about his own worst years.
A Pulitzer finalist
Milestone, and it changed his direction. A Pulitzer shortlist, and a place on a hundred best list.
Another book on himself
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: spend a decade listening, taken, or write the next one now. The result won six major prizes and is the book he is now best known for.
Ten years of interviews
Milestone, and it changed everything. Ten years of sitting in other people's living rooms, listening.
The 2010s
Far from the Tree
Milestone, and it changed everything. Six major prizes, for one book, built out of listening.
Three medical schools
Milestone, and it changed his direction. A writer, teaching clinical psychology at three medical schools.
President of PEN
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Running the writers' organisation, on top of everything else.
The interviews carry on and so do the lectures, in two cities and three medical schools. What he set moving is on the shelf of every parent who has been handed a diagnosis for a child they do not understand yet, written by a man who went and asked three hundred families how they got through it.
Your turn
Every line draws a unique story.
His is built out of going towards the hardest material available, including his own. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Andrew Solomon: frequently asked questions
What people ask about his line.
What is Andrew Solomon's character arc?
What is Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon about?
What is Andrew Solomon's Far from the Tree about?
Where does Andrew Solomon teach?
What did Andrew Solomon write about his mother?
What else has Andrew Solomon written about?
Where does this timeline of Andrew Solomon's life come from?
More character arcs
Lives that rhyme with his.
Sources
- Andrew Solomon, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- National Book Award records for 2001 and Pulitzer Prize finalist records for 2002.
- National Book Critics Circle and other prize records for 2012.
- His political journalism is named here as a subject he covers and is not summarised.