Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Barbara D'Amato Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

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

Barbara D'Amato

Barbara D'Amato

Barbara D'Amato Biography

Barbara D'Amato is a playwright, novelist, and crime researcher. She began writing full-time in 1973, first co-writing plays with her husband, Anthony D'Amato.

After trying different genres, her first published novel in 1980 was a mystery.

She won the Agatha and Anthony Award for a non-fiction work, The Doctor, the Murder, the Mystery: The True Story of the Dr. John Branion Murder Case based on a case her husband worked on in 1984. In 1999, she served as President of the Mystery Writers of America.

Her research on the Dr. John Branion murder case formed the basis for a segment on Unsolved Mysteries, and she appeared on the program. Her musical comedies, The Magic Man and the children's musical The Magic of Young Houdini, written with her husband, played in Chicago and London.

She lives with her family in Chicago.

Barbara D'Amato's website

This bio was last updated on 11/11/2014. 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

Barbara D'Amato explains the background to Death of a Thousand Cuts - a murder mystery set in a school for autistic children run by a charismatic director who is based on real life Bruno Bettelheim, the man who ran the Orthogenic School in Chicago and wrote many, now controversial, books about autism.

You have said in the past that "getting angry at something" fuels your books. Is that true in Death of a Thousand Cuts?
One source of energy for me is a sense of trying to right a wrong. Also, I think the villain’s character is enriched if there is more than just personal hatred or greed going on. In Death of a Thousand Cuts, the murder victim’s life was motivated by self-aggrandizement. But in a larger way he had the arrogance of professional authority, the view that he was always right because he had training and a degree. That kind of paternalism makes me angry.

What is Death of a Thousand Cuts about?
Hawthorne House, a residential treatment facility for autistic children, is holding a reunion fifteen years after closing its doors. Jeffrey Clifford, a young mildly autistic man, was a patient there for seven years. Clifford, other patients, staff members, and therapists plan to spend the reunion weekend at the old mansion. During the first night, Dr. Jay Schermerhorn, the charismatic and authoritarian director, is murdered.

Why did you want to write this particular book?
I had heard for some years that Bruno Bettelheim told the parents of his patients that they had caused their children's ...

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 Barbara D'Amato at BookBrowse
Death of a Thousand Cuts jacket White Male Infant 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 Barbara D'Amato 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

  • Daniel Akst

    Daniel Akst

    Dan Akst is a writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Slate and other leading publications. His most recent book is We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    White Male Infant

    Try:
    The Webster Chronicle
    by Daniel Akst

  • Bill Clegg

    Bill Clegg

    Bill Clegg is a literary agent in New York and the author of the bestselling memoirs Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man and Ninety Days. His first novel, Did You Ever Have a Family, hit the New York Times bestseller list ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    White Male Infant

    Try:
    Did You Ever Have A Family
    by Bill Clegg

We recommend 9 similar authors

View all 9 Read-Alikes

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: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare...

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

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

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.