Mary Gordon

Mary Catherine Gordon (born December 8, 1949) is an American writer from Queens and Valley Stream, New York. She is the McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College. She is best known for her novels, memoirs and literary criticism. In 2008, she was named Official State Author of New York. Early life and education Mary Gordon was born in Far Rockaway, New York, to Anna (Gagliano) Gordon, an Irish-Italian Catholic mother, and David Gordon, a Jewish father. Her father died in 1957 when she was young. She had identified with him and his love for writing and culture, and continued to learn his myths. When she was in her 40s, she began to learn about him, discovering that he had converted to Catholicism as a young man in 1937, before his marriage to her mother. His first name was Israel and he immigrated at the age of six with his family to Lorain, Ohio from Vilna, Lithuania. After his conversion, her father published some anti-Semitic and right-wing journalism. Gordon's search and attempt to reconcile her discoveries with the memory of her father became the basis of her memoir, The Shadow Man: A Daughter's Search for Her Father (1996). After being widowed, her mother Anna and Mary moved to live with her maternal grandmother, who was Irish Catholic, in Valley Stream, near Queens. Her mother worked as a secretary to support them. Gordon had a very Catholic childhood. She attended Holy Name of Mary School in Valley Stream and The Mary Louis Academy for high school in Jamaica, New York. Although her mother and her family wanted Gordon to go to a Catholic college, Gordon was awarded a scholarship to Barnard College, and she received her A.B. in 1971. She pursued graduate work, completing an M.A. at Syracuse University in 1973.