COOVER, ROBERT

born Feb. 4, 1932, Charles City, Iowa, U.S. in full Robert Lowell Coover American writer of avant-garde fiction, plays, poetry, and essays whose experimental forms and techniques mix reality and illusion, frequently creating otherworldly or surreal situations and effects. Coover attended Southern Illinois University, Indiana University (B.A., 1953), and the University of Chicago (M.A., 1965). He taught at several universities, notably Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. His first novel, The Origin of the Brunists (1966), is the most conventional of his works of fiction. It tells of the rise and eventual disintegration of a religious cult. The protagonist of The Universal Baseball Association, Inc. (1968) creates an imaginary baseball league, in which fictitious players take charge of their own lives. The stories in Pricksongs & Descants (1969) were praised for their verbal magic. The Public Burning (1976) is what Coover called a factional account of the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg; writing in the voice of Richard Nixon, Coover satirized the national mood of the early 1950s. Among his other works are Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears? (1987), Pinocchio in Venice (1991), John's Wife (1996), and Ghost Town (1998). Several of Coover's short stories were adapted for theatrical performance, including The Baby Sitter (filmed 1995) and Spanking the Maid.