O'Donnell, Mark
Entry updated 12 August 2018. Tagged: Author.
(1954-2012) US playwright, librettist, humorist and author, much of his work in the mode of the goonish Satire exemplified by The Harvard Lampoon, to which he contributed as by Ibis, and The Hasty Pudding Theatricals group. He is perhaps best known for his work on the musical Hairspray (first performed 2002, Seattle, Washington). His work of sf interest tends to the skit-like, as in the title novella included in Vertigo Park and Other Tall Tales (coll 1993), a sketched-in Alternate History of recent America that can be seen as an example of Absurdist SF. His work – and its emphasis on the grotesqueness of the modern American suburb – seems rather mild-mannered in comparison with that of his near contemporary George Saunders. [JC]
Mark O'Donnell
born Cleveland, Ohio: 19 July 1954
died New York: 6 August 2012
works (highly selected)
- Vertigo Park and Other Tall Tales (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1993) [coll: illus/hb/Chip Kidd]
links
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