Name David Goodwillie Role Novelist | Education Kenyon College | |
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Books American Subversive, Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: A Memoir | ||
Cooking the books episode 18 david goodwillie
David Goodwillie (born March 25, 1972) is an American novelist and memoirist. He has written two acclaimed books: the novel American Subversive (Scribner, 2010) and the memoir Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (Algonquin, 2006). Hailed as "genuinely thrilling" by The New Yorker, and "a triumphant work of fiction" by the Associated Press, American Subversive was a New York Times Notable Book of 2010, and a Vanity Fair and Publishers Weekly top ten spring debut. Upon publication of his previous book, Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, he was named one of the Best New Writers of 2006 by members of the PEN American Center. Goodwillie writes about books for The Daily Beast, and his fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and websites, including New York Magazine, Men's Health, Black Book, The New York Times, The New York Observer, The New York Post, The Rumpus, and Deadspin. He has also played professional baseball, worked as a private investigator, and been an expert at Sotheby’s auction house. A graduate of Kenyon College, he lives in New York City.
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Personal life
David was born in Paris and grew up in and around London, New York City, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.. He graduated from Kenyon College in May 1994 and a week later found himself trying out for the Cincinnati Reds. Though he was soon drafted to play professional baseball by the Newark Buffalos of the Class-A Frontier League, his career was short-lived. After being released he moved to New York City.
In the mid and late 1990s David held a series of improbable jobs including private investigator, Sotheby's auction house expert, investigative journalist, and Internet entrepreneur. In the Fall 1997 issue of Black Book magazine, he published a groundbreaking expose on the Italian Mafia’s activities in Manhattan’s garment trucking industry. In 1999, as the Sports Specialist at Sotheby’s Auction House, David presided over the $22 million sale of The Barry Halper Collection, the largest privately owned baseball memorabilia collection in the world. A few months later, he was hired to help found a sports and entertainment auction website, the now-defunct ABid4Charity.com. These and other adventures are detailed in his 2006 memoir, Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.
He dated Jewel for eight months in 1994, shortly before her rise to fame.