John Jeremiah Sullivan - Biography

Biography

Sullivan was born in Louisville, Kentucky. His father was sportswriter Mike Sullivan. He earned his degree in 1997 from The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.

His first book, Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter's Son was published in 2004. It is part personal reminiscence, part elegy for his father, and part investigation into the history and culture of the Thoroughbred racehorse.

His second book, Pulphead: Essays (2011) is an anthology of fourteen previously published magazine articles, with most of them "in substantially different form" for the book.

Sullivan's essay "Mister Lytle: An Essay"—originally published in The Paris Review—won a number of awards and was anthologized in Pulphead. Sullivan recounts how he lived with Andrew Nelson Lytle, when Lytle was in his 90s, helping him with house chores and learning some wisdom about writing and life.

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