In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Tony Earley Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Tony Earley

Tony Earley

Tony Earley Biography

Tony Earley is the Samuel Milton Fleming Chair in English at Vanderbilt. He received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama and has taught at Vanderbilt since 1997. He has been named one of the "twenty best young fiction writers in America" by The New Yorker and one of the "Best of Young American Novelists" by Granta.

His books include a collection of short storeis, Here We Are in Paradise: Stories (1994); a novel, Jim the Boy (2002); and a collection of personal essays, Somehow Form a Family: Stories That Are Mostly True (2001). His stories have also appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, and Best American Short Stories. His work has been widely anthologized as well as translated into a number of different languages.

At Vanderbilt, he teaches beginning, intermediate, and advanced fiction workshops as well as a seminar on Hemingway and American fiction.



This bio was last updated on 01/08/2014. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Interview

An interview with Tony Earley, before the publication of Jim The Boy (2000)

Who and what are your influences?
My wife has pointed out that everyone in my family knows how to tell a story. Apparently, this isn't true for all families. So I guess my family was my earliest and probably most profound influence. That I was able to write about the Depression without having to do a lot of research is because a large part of my family's story stockpile is about life during that time. I feel like I've almost lived in it myself. When my grandmother talks about the way things were, I can almost see it.

The influence other writers have had on me is harder to track. I've read thousands of books, and I probably learned something from all of them. But how do you figure out what? My two favorite books, though, My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop, are both by Willa Cather. I don't know if Cather's had the greatest influence on me, but she's the one writer whose influence I would most hate to be without.


Do you consider yourself to be a Southern writer? Do you identify more with the grand tradition of Southern literature or with today's young literary writers?
I consider myself a southern writer because that's where I'm from and that's what I write about. More specifically, ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by Tony Earley at BookBrowse
Mr. Tall jacket The Blue Star jacket Jim The Boy jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Tony Earley but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Jimmy Carter

    Jimmy Carter

    Jimmy Carter was born in Plains, Georgia in 1924, and served as thirty-ninth President of the United States. He and his wife, Rosalynn, founded The Carter Center, a nonprofit organization that prevents and resolves conflicts,... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Jim The Boy

    Try:
    An Hour Before Daylight
    by Jimmy Carter

  • Jonathan Coe

    Jonathan Coe

    Jonathan Coe was born in 1961 in Lickey, a suburb of south-west Birmingham. His first novel, The Accidental Woman was published in 1987. His best-selling novels include What a Carve Up! and The Rotters' Club (2001). He is the... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Jim The Boy

    Try:
    The Rotter's Club
    by Jonathan Coe

We recommend 12 similar authors


Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The House of Doors
    by Tan Twan Eng
    Every July, I take on the overly ambitious goal of reading all of the novels chosen as longlist ...
  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...
  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.