Frank Bergon is a novelist, critic, and essayist whose writing focuses primarily on California and the American West. He has published 12 books, most recently a memoir about his Basque American heritage, The Toughest Kid We Knew: The Old New West (2020). His novel Jesse’s Ghost was selected in 2024 for The New York Times’ “Best Books About California.” He is an emeritus professor of English at Vassar College.
Frank Bergon
Articles
One Community, Undivided, Uniquely on This Side of the Border
Frank Bergon reviews two new collections from Dagoberto Gilb: “New Testaments” and “A Passing West: Essays from the Borderlands.”
I Understand Thee, and Can Speak Thy Tongue: California Unlocks Shakespeare’s Gibberish
In honor of National Talk Like Shakespeare Day, Frank Bergon writes about Shakespeare’s possible use of the Basque language.
Guns and Grammar, or How to Read the Second Amendment
Frank Bergon argues that bad grammar is driving our gun problem, via the Supreme Court’s reading of the Second Amendment.
Stephen Crane’s 150th Birthday
Was Stephen Crane the American Dickens?
Our Age of Sincere Inauthenticity
The route to authenticity is paved with artifice.
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