Daniel Fuchs
Daniel Fuchs was a notable Jewish American writer, recognized primarily for his Williamsburg trilogy, which includes the novels *Summer in Williamsburg*, *Homage to Blenholt*, and *Low Company*. Born on the Lower East Side of New York City to Eastern European immigrant parents, Fuchs drew much of his inspiration from his childhood in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His works are often regarded as pioneering contributions to Jewish American literature, influencing later literary figures such as Saul Bellow and Philip Roth. Although his novels explore themes of moral ambiguity and societal decay, they did not achieve significant commercial success during his lifetime, leading to a sense of disillusionment that prompted him to shift towards short story writing for better financial rewards.
In addition to his novels, Fuchs had a successful career in Hollywood, writing screenplays and winning an Academy Award for his work on *Love Me or Leave Me*. Despite receiving critical acclaim, Fuchs remains a somewhat overlooked figure in American literature, with contemporary critics still recognizing his importance. His rich body of work, including short stories and essays, showcases his unique perspective on the complexities of modern life.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Daniel Fuchs
American novelist
- Born: June 25, 1909
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: July 26, 1993
- Place of death: Los Angeles, California
Identity: Jewish
Biography
By the end of the twentieth century, Daniel Fuchs (fyewks) was best known for his first three novels, Summer in Williamsburg, Homage to Blenholt, and Low Company, which became known as his Williamsburg trilogy. These books, many critics feel, are pioneering works in Jewish American literature that paved the way for some of the greatest Jewish American writers of the second half of the twentieth century, such as Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and Bernard Malamud. Nonetheless, few twentieth century readers were familiar with any of Fuchs’s stories or novels.
Fuchs’s parents immigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe. Daniel, their fifth child, was born on the lower East Side of New York City, then a largely immigrant Jewish neighborhood. When Daniel was five, his family moved to Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, which became the source from which Fuchs drew the inspiration and much of the material for his trilogy. There, Daniel’s father started selling newspapers and eventually had a concession stand in the Whitehall Building on Battery Place. Fuchs avidly read the newspapers and magazines his father sold and spent much time attending movies and reading novels, activities that would influence his writing.
He graduated from City College in New York in 1930 with a major in philosophy. While there, he wrote for and then edited the college’s literary magazine, The Lavender. After graduating, he taught at Public School 225 in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. In 1932 he married Susan Chessen. He then wrote and published the Williamsburg trilogy. In the introduction to Three Novels, he complains about how few copies the books sold. In the same introduction, he tells about being disillusioned by the small amount of money that the novels earned and turning to short-story writing instead, publishing in magazines like The New Yorker, Esquire, and The Saturday Evening Post and earning good money for his stories.
The Williamsburg trilogy does not fit neatly into any category. Fuchs objected to calling it a trilogy. Each volume stands independently, with different characters and slightly different settings. Still, all three novels involve the ideas that modern society has no moral center and no god presiding over it. In the first two novels, gangsters receive adulation and riches, while hardworking, honest people remain in obscure poverty. In the last novel of the trilogy, it is difficult to find anyone who is honest. A large, faceless crime syndicate drives out a petty criminal as it organizes the prostitution business in the city; everyone loses.
In 1937, Fuchs accepted a thirteen-week contract to write screenplays for Radio Corporation of America. Apparently dissatisfied with Hollywood, he returned to the East after the contract expired but went back to Hollywood in the early 1940’s when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the rights to one of his stories, “The Fabulous Rubio.” He stayed in Hollywood, except when, during World War II, he served in the Navy’s Office of Strategic Services, mostly in Washington, D.C. He wrote many screenplays, including the one for Love Me or Leave Me, on which he collaborated with Isobel Lennart. The screenplay was based on his story, for which he won the 1955 Academy Award for Best Motion Picture Story. He wrote many short stories about Hollywood and one Hollywood novel, West of the Rockies, about an aging movie star and her agent. Many of his best stories and essays, including his novella, Triplicate, are collected in The Apathetic Bookie Joint.
All of Fuchs’s books received some good reviews in important places, but they never sold well during his lifetime. Even today, critics were still calling him a forgotten but important figure in American literature.
Bibliography
Howe, Irving. “Daniel Fuchs’ Williamsburg Trilogy: A Cigarette and a Window.” In Proletarian Writers of the Thirties, edited by David Madden. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1968. A discussion of Fuchs’s Williamsburg novels, by one of the most important critics of twentieth century Jewish American literature. Praises Fuchs’s ability to portray the power within everyday life.
Krafchick, Marcelline. World Without Heroes: The Brooklyn Novels of Daniel Fuchs. Rutherford, N.J: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1988. A detailed discussion of the Williamsburg novels in terms of their points of ambivalence.
Miller, Gabriel. Daniel Fuchs. Boston: Twayne, 1979. A useful introduction to all aspects of Fuchs’s career. Summarizes Fuchs’s life and discusses many individual works, including those produced during the Hollywood years.
Rubin, Rachel. Jewish Gangsters of Modern Literature. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Argues that Fuchs’s gangsters resemble businessmen rather than the heroic figures gangsters are in works by some other authors.