Chris Bohjalian
Author of Midwives
About the Author
Chris Bohjalian (born on August 12, 1962 in White Plains, New York) graduated from Amherst College and worked as an account representative for J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New York in the mid-1980s. Bohjalian is an American novelist and the author of 15 novels, including the bestsellers show more Midwives and The Sandcastle Girls. His first novel, A Killing in the Real World, was released in 1988. His other novels include Water Witches, The Law of Similars, Before You Know Kindness, Skeletons at the Feast, and The Night Strangers. Past the Bleachers and Midwives were made into Hallmark Hall of Fame movies and Secrets of Eden was made into a Lifetime Television movie. He won the New England Book Award in 2002. He also contributes to numerous publications including Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest, Boston Globe Sunday Magazine and the Burlington Free Press. Bohjalian's The Guest Room is a New York Times bestseller. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Chris Bohjalian
The Flight Attendant: The Complete First Season — Based on the novel by — 5 copies
Slot Machine Fever Dreams 2 copies
Dubla constrangere 1 copy
Associated Works
The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter Most to Them (2006) — Contributor — 411 copies, 18 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- Bohjalian, Christopher Aram (birth name)
- Birthdate
- 1962-08-12
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Amherst College
- Occupations
- novelist
- Organizations
- Burlington Free Press
- Awards and honors
- Phi Beta Kappa
- Short biography
- Chris A. Bohjalian, known professionally as Chris Bohjalian is an American novelist and the author of 20 novels, including such bestsellers as Midwives (1997), The Sandcastle Girls (2012), The Guest Room (2016) and The Flight Attendant (2018) Bohjalian's work has been published in over 30 languages and three of his novels have been adapted into films. Bohjalian's The Flight Attendant has been adapted for an upcoming television drama starring Kaley Cuoco.
Chris Bohjalian graduated from Amherst College Summa Cum Laude, where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. In the mid-1980s, he worked as an account representative for J. Walter Thompson, an ad agency located in New York City. Bohjalian moved with his wife, Victoria Blewer, to Lincoln, Vermont in 1988.
In Lincoln, Bohjalian began writing weekly columns for the local newspaper and magazine about living in the small town, which had a population of about 975 residents. The column ran in the Burlington Free Press from 1992 through 2015 and won a Best Lifestyle Column from the Vermont Press Association. Bohjalian has also written for such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest, The New York Times, and the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.
Bohjalian's first novel, A Killing in the Real World, was released in 1988. His third novel, Past the Bleachers, was released in 1992 and was adapted to a Hallmark Channel television movie in 1995.
In 1997, Bohjalian's fifth novel, Midwives, was released. The novel focuses on the rural Vermont midwife Sibyl Danforth, who becomes embroiled in a legal battle after one of her patients died following an emergency Caesarean section. The novel was critically acclaimed and was selected by Oprah Winfrey as the October 1998 selection of her Oprah's Book Club. It became a #1 New York Times and #1 USA Today bestseller. In 2001, the novel was adapted into a Lifetime Movie Network television film starring Sissy Spacek in the lead role. Spacek said the Danforth character appealed to her because, "the heart of the story is my character's inner struggle with self-doubt, the solo road you travel when you have a secret". - Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- White Plains, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- White Plains, New York, USA
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Lincoln, Vermont, USA - Associated Place (for map)
- New York, USA
Members
Reviews
If one were to just look at the title, it is easy to dismiss The Sleepwalker as a frivolous story. After all, a sleepwalker immediately conjures images of kids wandering the hallways in their pajamas or doing something equally silly in their sleep. However, Mr. Bohjalian shows just how dangerous and disruptive sleep disorders, like sleepwalking or its darker cousin parasomnia, are to patients and family alike, no matter what age. What he shows is a much darker world in which nighttime is show more synonymous with anxiety and sleep becomes fraught with danger. Just how much danger becomes apparent as Lianna searches for and obtains answers to her mother’s final hours.
Mr. Bohjalian captures human emotions so well, which is one of the reasons why his stories are so powerful. Lianna’s grief and confusion are palpable, making it easy to lose yourself in her pain and fears. Better yet, her feelings and reactions are great reminders of just how young she is. Mr. Bohjalian does not try to make her older or wiser than her years but maintains her character as an inexperienced twenty-one year old still trying to figure out who she is and what she wants to do with her life. Her struggles to fill the hole left by her mother make her even more realistic. She triggers your sympathies and makes you ache at all she has to suffer.
Chris Bohjalian has done it again. With The Sleepwalker, he sheds light on the odd but terrifying disorder of parasomnia incorporated into the bones of a taut and intense murder mystery and poignant burgeoning romance. Informative as well as entertaining, his latest novel has a little something for all readers and is a novel that all will love. show less
Mr. Bohjalian captures human emotions so well, which is one of the reasons why his stories are so powerful. Lianna’s grief and confusion are palpable, making it easy to lose yourself in her pain and fears. Better yet, her feelings and reactions are great reminders of just how young she is. Mr. Bohjalian does not try to make her older or wiser than her years but maintains her character as an inexperienced twenty-one year old still trying to figure out who she is and what she wants to do with her life. Her struggles to fill the hole left by her mother make her even more realistic. She triggers your sympathies and makes you ache at all she has to suffer.
Chris Bohjalian has done it again. With The Sleepwalker, he sheds light on the odd but terrifying disorder of parasomnia incorporated into the bones of a taut and intense murder mystery and poignant burgeoning romance. Informative as well as entertaining, his latest novel has a little something for all readers and is a novel that all will love. show less
Do not be deceived by the cover or title. This book is not a light romance or beach read. It is historical fiction about the Armenian Genocide in Turkey in 1915. The plot revolves around a set of photos of the refugees taken by German soldiers that are confiscated but resurface many years later. It is told in dual timeline, with the vast majority set in Syria, where the Armenian refugees had arrived after their horrific march through the Turkish desert. The modern timeline is set in 2012, show more with the granddaughter of the protagonist researching and writing her family’s history.
As may be expected in a book about genocide, it contains a great deal of disturbing content – gruesome descriptions of beheadings, rape, starvation, harm to children, and other cruelties. I think the author does a good job of balancing the narrative with other topics, such as the investigation of the family’s history and the question of what happened to the photos. The portion set in the past is the more effective of the two timelines. It is a historical story well-told. show less
As may be expected in a book about genocide, it contains a great deal of disturbing content – gruesome descriptions of beheadings, rape, starvation, harm to children, and other cruelties. I think the author does a good job of balancing the narrative with other topics, such as the investigation of the family’s history and the question of what happened to the photos. The portion set in the past is the more effective of the two timelines. It is a historical story well-told. show less
What begins as the story of a pilot dealing with severe PTSD morphs into an atmospheric horror novel. The pilot and his wife, Chip and Emily Linton, move their family to a rambling Victorian house in a small New England town hoping to rebuild their lives after the crash of one of Chip's flights in which nearly all the passengers die. But Chip finds a strange door in the basement sealed with 39 six-inch long carriage bolts. Mysterious enough, but it is also the exact number of passengers who show more died in the crash. As Chip's mental state deteriorates and he begins seeing ghosts, his wife and children cope with the town's rather odd group of self-proclaimed herbalists. Why are the herbalists so interested in the two girls, and why do they want to give Emily and the girls new names? Truly creepy, right down to the final twist. One of my favorite books of the year. show less
The Jackal’s Mistress: A Novel, Chris Bohjalian, author; narrator, Marni Penning, narrator
The Civil War is raging and Libby Steadman has been resolutely trying to keep her farm afloat. She supplies the Confederates with flour from her gristmill. Peter, her husband, was captured by the Yankees, and she heard that he was in a prisoner of war camp. She hopes they have not killed him. It has been a long time since she heard any news.
Peter freed his father’s slaves when his father passed, show more and two of them, Sally and Joseph remained with her as employees. They were paid freedmen who were integral to her survival. She is also caring for her niece Jubilee. Jubilee’s mother had passed and her father was away fighting for the Confederate Army.
When Sally finds a critically wounded Union soldier abandoned in a neighbor’s farmhouse, she rescues him, though she knows the penalty if he is discovered would be horrific for Sally, Joseph, herself and Jubilee. She was unable to leave a human being alone to die. How she hoped someone on the other side might extend the same compassion to her husband, if he was wounded and needed help.
Captain Jonathan Weybridge is in very grave condition. He has lost a limb and a couple of fingers on his hand. His wounds need care. He had been left to starve and die of thirst while in terrible pain. How, she wondered, could anyone do that to another human being? (Would that not also make her wonder how anyone could believe in slavery?) She engages the help of a doctor who loves his alcohol and bribes him to keep silent.
To save her own life, the lives of those in her household, and the injured Jackel, as Jubilee insists on calling him, Libby must truly compromise her values, but which values should she honor? She rises to the occasion and puts human life before the politics of the war. The Jackal has told her that he is 24, has a wife and two sons in Vermont. His last letter from his wife was awhile ago. He knows nothing about how they are. He wants to live to return to his home. Jubilee agrees to write a letter home for him, since his injuries prevent him from being able to do it himself. Sally and Joseph, the freed slaves, want him to live also. They risk their lives caring for him, because he supports their freedom. Jubilee and Libby, however, are conflicted regarding slavery and the political situation. Jubilee has been well indoctrinated against the Northern Yankees, but Libby has a kind heart and tries to help her see that they are doing the right thing in saving the Captain. Although she seems to see him as a human being, she never stops calling Weybridge the Jackal! She also doesn’t understand why Joseph and Sally did not have the same rights and privileges as she did.
Are all those who do not understand that slavery is wrong simply children in need of maturing? Perhaps they are not all evil, but just uneducated or indoctrinated to hate others. The book surely points out the injustice of slavery and other forms of oppression because if Libby could understand that her enemy might deserve help, common sense should dictate that the treatment of slaves was wrong and barbaric. Still, she lived in the South and disobeying the Confederates by caring for the enemy would make her guilty of treason, so she had to make a choice, wise or not, it was the only one she believed that a decent person could make.
The bullet’s mistress was defined as a bullet used as a last resort when there was no hope. Did she become the Jackal’s mistress because it was the only way forward for both of them, because it was the choice of last resort? Was it a wise choice? Was it the last resort?
The question that comes to the forefront on every page is how does one fight injustice? What is right and wrong? Also, what kind of a human being leaves another human being behind to die? What purpose does a war serve? Could the issues be resolved without the fighting and violence resulting in death and destruction? How can human beings be cruel to any human being, no matter who that person is?
The evil of some of the men who took advantage of their power was exposed, and they were disposed of quickly by Libby and Joseph. Unexpectedly, I cheered the murders on because it felt like justice was served. We are all the same. We all bleed. Some of us, however, are evil. Evil must not succeed. The problem is that it still exists and always seems to be present, even when in a disguised form. Is it even possible to root it out? “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”, Edmund Burke. We must remember to do something instead. show less
The Civil War is raging and Libby Steadman has been resolutely trying to keep her farm afloat. She supplies the Confederates with flour from her gristmill. Peter, her husband, was captured by the Yankees, and she heard that he was in a prisoner of war camp. She hopes they have not killed him. It has been a long time since she heard any news.
Peter freed his father’s slaves when his father passed, show more and two of them, Sally and Joseph remained with her as employees. They were paid freedmen who were integral to her survival. She is also caring for her niece Jubilee. Jubilee’s mother had passed and her father was away fighting for the Confederate Army.
When Sally finds a critically wounded Union soldier abandoned in a neighbor’s farmhouse, she rescues him, though she knows the penalty if he is discovered would be horrific for Sally, Joseph, herself and Jubilee. She was unable to leave a human being alone to die. How she hoped someone on the other side might extend the same compassion to her husband, if he was wounded and needed help.
Captain Jonathan Weybridge is in very grave condition. He has lost a limb and a couple of fingers on his hand. His wounds need care. He had been left to starve and die of thirst while in terrible pain. How, she wondered, could anyone do that to another human being? (Would that not also make her wonder how anyone could believe in slavery?) She engages the help of a doctor who loves his alcohol and bribes him to keep silent.
To save her own life, the lives of those in her household, and the injured Jackel, as Jubilee insists on calling him, Libby must truly compromise her values, but which values should she honor? She rises to the occasion and puts human life before the politics of the war. The Jackal has told her that he is 24, has a wife and two sons in Vermont. His last letter from his wife was awhile ago. He knows nothing about how they are. He wants to live to return to his home. Jubilee agrees to write a letter home for him, since his injuries prevent him from being able to do it himself. Sally and Joseph, the freed slaves, want him to live also. They risk their lives caring for him, because he supports their freedom. Jubilee and Libby, however, are conflicted regarding slavery and the political situation. Jubilee has been well indoctrinated against the Northern Yankees, but Libby has a kind heart and tries to help her see that they are doing the right thing in saving the Captain. Although she seems to see him as a human being, she never stops calling Weybridge the Jackal! She also doesn’t understand why Joseph and Sally did not have the same rights and privileges as she did.
Are all those who do not understand that slavery is wrong simply children in need of maturing? Perhaps they are not all evil, but just uneducated or indoctrinated to hate others. The book surely points out the injustice of slavery and other forms of oppression because if Libby could understand that her enemy might deserve help, common sense should dictate that the treatment of slaves was wrong and barbaric. Still, she lived in the South and disobeying the Confederates by caring for the enemy would make her guilty of treason, so she had to make a choice, wise or not, it was the only one she believed that a decent person could make.
The bullet’s mistress was defined as a bullet used as a last resort when there was no hope. Did she become the Jackal’s mistress because it was the only way forward for both of them, because it was the choice of last resort? Was it a wise choice? Was it the last resort?
The question that comes to the forefront on every page is how does one fight injustice? What is right and wrong? Also, what kind of a human being leaves another human being behind to die? What purpose does a war serve? Could the issues be resolved without the fighting and violence resulting in death and destruction? How can human beings be cruel to any human being, no matter who that person is?
The evil of some of the men who took advantage of their power was exposed, and they were disposed of quickly by Libby and Joseph. Unexpectedly, I cheered the murders on because it felt like justice was served. We are all the same. We all bleed. Some of us, however, are evil. Evil must not succeed. The problem is that it still exists and always seems to be present, even when in a disguised form. Is it even possible to root it out? “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”, Edmund Burke. We must remember to do something instead. show less
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Five star books (1)
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Statistics
- Works
- 37
- Also by
- 4
- Members
- 28,769
- Popularity
- #698
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
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- ISBNs
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- 13
- Favorited
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