Still Life with Woodpecker

Although born in North Carolina in 1932, Robbins has lived in Washington state since moving there to attend the University of Washington for a master’s degree in the 1960s. While in Seattle, Robbins worked as a journalist, specifically an art critic, and hosted a radio show. While working as a journalist, Robbins spent nights working on his first novel, Another Roadside Attraction.

Another Roadside Attraction was published in 1971 and became an immediate cult classic. Robbins followed this success with his second novel, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which was adapted by director Gus Van Sant into a 1993 film starring Uma Thurman. Still Life with Woodpecker was Robbins’s third novel and firmly established him in the canon of 20th-century American authors. In 2000, Writer’s Digest named Robbins one of the 100 Best Writers of the 20th Century, and he was famously called “the most dangerous writer in the world today” by Fernanda Pivano, an Italian critic for Corriere della Sera.

Robbins’s novels are defined by their humor and wordplay, which inform the satirical nature of his work. Satire is a genre in which the author uses humor—including exaggeration,

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