Allegra Goodman

Allegra Goodman (born 1967) is an American writer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Allegra Goodman
Born	1967 (age 57–58) New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist
Education	Harvard University (AB) Stanford University (PhD)
Period	1989-current
Genre	Literary fiction
Spouse	David Karger
Children	4
Website
allegragoodman.com

Early life and education

Allegra Goodman was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Hawaii.^[1] The daughter of Lenn and Madeleine Goodman,^[2] she was brought up as a Conservative Jew.^[3] Her mother, who died in 1996, was a professor of genetics and women's studies, then assistant vice president at the University of Hawaii at Manoa for many years, before moving on to Vanderbilt University in the 1990s.^[4] Her father, Lenn E. Goodman,^[4] is a professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt.

Goodman wrote and illustrated her first novel at the age of seven.^[5]

Goodman graduated from Punahou School in 1985. She then went on to Harvard University, where she earned an A.B. degree. She then went on to do graduate work at Stanford University, where Goodman earned a Ph.D. degree in English literature, in 1996.^[2]

Writing

Goodman's younger sister, Paula Fraenkel, is an oncologist. Fraenkel's experience in research labs is one of the inspirations for Goodman's 2006 novel Intuition.^[6]

Her short story "La Vita Nuova" was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2011 and was broadcast on Public Radio International's Selected Shorts in February 2012.^[7]

Personal life

Goodman met her husband, David Karger, at Harvard. Both were regulars at Harvard Hillel, and prayed in Harvard Hillel Orthodox Minyan. Goodman and Karger live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Karger is a professor in computer science^[8] at MIT. They have four children, three boys and a girl.^[3]

Awards and honors

Year	Title	Award	Category	Result	Ref
1991	—	Whiting Award	Fiction	Won
1998	Kaaterskill Falls	National Book Award	Fiction	Shortlisted
2009	Intuition	Wellcome Book Prize	—	Shortlisted
2018	"F.A.Q.s"	Sunday Times Short Story Award	—	Shortlisted

Bibliography

Novels

• Kaaterskill Falls (The Dial Press 1998; paperback Dial Press Trade Paperback 1999) ISBN 0-385-32389-1, ISBN 0-385-32390-5
• Paradise Park (The Dial Press 2001, Dial Press Trade Paperback 2002) ISBN 0-385-33416-8, ISBN 0-385-33418-4
• Intuition (The Dial Press 2006), ISBN 0-385-33612-8
• The Other Side of the Island (New York: Razorbill, 2008) ISBN 978-1-59514-196-5
• The Cookbook Collector (The Dial Press 2010) ISBN 978-0-385-34085-4
• The Chalk Artist: A Novel (The Dial Press 2017) ISBN 978-1-400-06987-3
• Sam: A Novel (The Dial Press 2023) ISBN 978-0-593-59682-1
• Isola: A Novel (The Dial Press 2025) ISBN 978-0-593-73008-9^[9]

Short fiction

Collections

• Total Immersion (Harper & Row 1989; paperback Dial Press Trade Paperback 1998) ISBN 0-06-015998-7, ISBN 0-385-33299-8
• The Family Markowitz (Farrar Straus & Giroux 1996; softcover Washington Square Press 1997) ISBN 0-374-15321-3, ISBN 0-671-01388-2

Stories^[a]

• Goodman, Allegra (March 4, 1991). "Onionskin". The New Yorker.
• Goodman, Allegra (January 5, 1992). "The Wedding of Henry Markowitz". The New Yorker.
• Goodman, Allegra (November 8, 1992). "Fantasy Rose". The New Yorker.
• Goodman, Allegra (August 1, 1993). "Mosquitoes". The New Yorker.
• Goodman, Allegra (January 9, 1994). "Sarah". The New Yorker.
• Goodman, Allegra (July 6, 1997). "The Closet". The New Yorker.
• Goodman, Allegra (June 13, 1999). "The Local Production of Cinderella". The New Yorker.
• Goodman, Allegra (July 3, 2005). "Long-Distance Client". The New Yorker.
• Goodman, Allegra (April 26, 2010). "La Vita Nuova". The New Yorker.
• Goodman, Allegra (June 30, 2014). "Apple Cake". The New Yorker.
• Goodman, Allegra (September 4, 2017). "F.A.Q.s". The New Yorker.
• Goodman, Allegra (January 25, 2021). "A Challenge You Have Overcome". The New Yorker.
• Goodman, Allegra (February 20, 2023). "The Last Grownup". The New Yorker.

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Notes

1. Short stories unless otherwise noted.