Former Writers' Workshop professor passes away
Years ago, in a weathered one room school-house atop a hill near his family's home on a farm several miles from Iowa City, Vance Nye Bourjaily wrote tales of war and music that led Ernest Hemingway to call him one of the greatest writers under 50.
"He was a very slow writer," recalled son Philip Bourjaily. "Whenever he was stuck, he would pick up his trumpet and play. We could hear him playing all the way from the house."
Bourjaily, a former professor at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, died Tuesday in Greenbrae, Calif. He was 87.
Bourjaily, who taught in the Workshop for more than 20 years, leaves behind a lasting legacy at the Workshop.
"Vance was one of the great teachers of the Workshop," said Workshop Director Lan Samantha Chang. "He fostered so many brilliant students and writers."
Bourjaily began teaching at the UI in 1957.
"There were a lot of writers who came and went in the Workshop, but not dad," said Phillip Bourjaily. "I'd like to think he influenced more than one generation of students."
He said his parents often gave parties for students and anyone else who would come to their family farm. He also remembered a time when Vance Bourjaily took him and a Workshop student — John Irving — to a Hawkeyes wrestling match.
"We grew up among famous writers," said Philip Workshop, 52. "Those people were around so much we didn't think of them as famous."
He said he and siblings didn't think of their father as famous, either, but their father's work garnered critical acclaim.
Brill Among the Ruins, Bourjaily's sixth novel, is probably his best known said daughter Robin Bourjaily.
The story of a middle-aged lawyer from Illinois was nominated for a National Book Award in 1970 and also saw favorable reviews from the New York Times Book Review.
In his lifetime, Bourjaily wrote 10 novels. Robin Bourjaily, 45, said she remembers the first book she read, The Hound of Earth.
"I was a teenager when I read most of his work," she said. "I got to look into another world. This was a different guy from the one who was usually making rules and telling me what not to do."
Vance Bourjaily's parents were both writers, said Philip Bourjaily — his father a newspaper reporter and mother a general storyteller. Philip Bourjaily, now a writer for the outdoors magazine Field and Stream, said writing was second nature to his dad.
Some of his work was influenced by his love of music, Robin Bourjaily said, specifically jazz. He moved to New Orleans in 1987 and taught up the road at Louisiana State University.
"He'd just returned from a trip to New Orleans speaking with people about Katrina," said daughter-in-law Pamela Bourjaily. "He made a trip to Iowa City and saw the family, and we're so grateful to have had that final visit."
The Bourjaily family is planning two memorial services in California and Iowa City. No further details regarding either were available Thursday.
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