Life and Work
He studied English at Michigan State University in East Lansing. In 1996, the 22-year-old went to Uzbekistan as a volunteer for the Peace Corps. He was there for seven months before returning home. He then worked as a book editor in New York City and published, among other books, The Collected Stories of Richard Yates and Paula Fox's memoir Borrowed Finery..He is a frequent reviewer for The New York Times Book Review.
Bissell's father served in the Marines during the Vietnam War, alongside author and journalist Philip Caputo. The two remained friends during Bissell's childhood and Caputo read Bissell's work and encouraged him in his early writing efforts.
Read more about this topic: Tom Bissell
Famous quotes containing the words life and, life and/or work:
“The ancients adorned their sarcophagi with the emblems of life and procreation, and even with obscene symbols; in the religions of antiquity the sacred and the obscene often lay very close together. These men knew how to pay homage to death. For death is worthy of homage as the cradle of life, as the womb of palingenesis.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“We are all of us resigned to death: it’s life we aren’t resigned to.”
—Graham Greene (1904–1991)
“Let’s holler and ask him if he won’t prescribe
For all humanity a complete rest
From all this wagery. But what’s the use
Of asking any sympathy of him?
That class of people don’t know what work is....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)