Robert Boswell

Century's Son

CENTURY'S SON is my most recent novel. It features a character named Peter Ivanovich Kamenev, a Russian immigrant who claims to have had the opportunity to kill Stalin. He has made a career from this single moment in his life. He is also the master of the aphorism, and each chapter begins with one:

Strengths and weaknesses are the same thing, the valuable and the invaluable.

We record history as if it were a sorrow pageant, each disaster competing with the next to wear the crown.

Vulgarity is an expression of stupidity, coarseness, or freedom.

If history is not personal, it is not history.

Century's Son

Published Works

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Story Collections
The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards

Published by Graywolf Press, April 2009
Living to Be 100

Published by Knopf in 1994. Paperback published by HarperCollins in 1995.
Dancing in the Movies

Selected by Tim O'Brien as the Winner of the Iowa Prize in 1985 Published by the University of Iowa Press in 1986. Paperback edition from New American Library published in 1987.
Nonfiction
The Half-Known World

Essays on the writing of fiction. Published by Graywolf in 2008
What Men Call Treasure: The Search for Gold at Victorio Peak

Co-written with David Schweidel. Finalist for the 2008 Western Writers of America Best Work of Nonfiction. Published by Cinco Puntos Press in 2008.
Novels
Century's Son

Published in 2002 by Knopf Paperback published in 2003 by Picador
American Owned Love

Published by Knopf in 1997. Paperback published by HarperPerennial in 1998
Mystery Ride

Published by Knopf in 1993. Paperback published by HarperCollins in 1994.
The Geography of Desire

Published by Knopf in 1989. Paperback published by HarperCollins in 1994.
Crooked Hearts

Published by Knopf in 1987. Paperback published by HarperCollins in 1988.
Virtual Death

Published by HarperPrism, 1995
Plays
Tongues

Winner of the John Gassner Prize First performed by American Southwest Theatre Company in 1999