Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Life List of Adrian Mandrick
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.chriswhitewriter.com/home.html
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2017043670
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2017043670
HEADING: White, Chris, 1959-
000 00616cz a2200145n 450
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005 20170724105535.0
008 170724n| azannaabn |a aaa
010 __ |a n 2017043670
040 __ |a DLC |b eng |e rda |c DLC
053 _0 |a PS3623.H57263
100 1_ |a White, Chris, |d 1959-
400 1_ |a White, Mary Christine, |d 1959-
670 __ |a The life list of Adrian Mandrick, 2018: |b CIP t.p. (Chris White)
670 __ |a e-mail 2017-07-24 fr. L.Blackman, Touchstone: |b (“The author’s full name is actually Mary Christine White, but she’s going by Chris White as her author name. This is her first book. . . . her birth year is 1959”).
PERSONAL
Born 1959.
EDUCATION:University of Colorado, B.A.; Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Vocalist, filmmaker, actor, and author. DePauw University, teacher.
AWARDS:Helen Hayes Award, 2008, for Rhythms; Basile Indiana Emerging Playwrights Award, 2008, for Mud Lotus; Award of Merit, Women’s Independent Film Festival, for Weasel in the Icebox.
WRITINGS
Author of plays, including Rhythms, Sin Eater, Thespian, and Two-Character Play. Author of screenplays, including Mud Lotus, Weasel in the Icebox, and Pain Management.
SIDELIGHTS
Chris White, also known as Mary Christine White, got her professional start through the art world. She has worked for many years as a filmmaker. Prior to starting her career, however, she attended the Tisch School of the Arts and the University of Colorado, where she obtained her master’s of fine arts and bachelor’s degrees, respectively. She also attended the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. Some of her most notable film works include Mud Lotus, Weasel in the Icebox, and Pain Management, all of which have debuted at various film festivals throughout the United States. White has also penned several stage plays, including Sin Eater, Rhythms, Two-Character Play, and Thespians. White has received several awards for her work, including the Award of Merit, as well as the Helen Hayes Award. She is also a member of Flesh and Bone, a musical group, and has sung at a variety of venues. In addition to her creative work, White is also affiliated with DePauw University, where she leads creative writing classes.
The Life List of Adrian Mandrick serves as White’s literary debut. The novel stars the titular Adrian Mandrick, a man who is more troubled below the surface than his idyllic life would imply. Each day, Adrian is continually haunted by traumatic experiences. Adrian has long cut off his parents who, to his memory and knowledge, were abusive. He survived sexual abuse at the hands of his mother, who spirited away Adrian’s brother and Adrian to escape his father. As an adult, Adrian has turned to drug abuse to cope, while managing to live very successfully on the surface. However, Adrian finds his troubled history being dragged to the forefront against his will when his mother tries to return to his life and then passes away. Unable to deal with the emotional and mental onslaught this occurrence brings, Adrian turns to self-destruction. He dives into his hobby—bird-watching—with the intent of finally catching sight of a specific type of bird that is widely believed to no longer exist. It is this bird that serves as one of the few happy memories he has of his childhood, as well as the one thing Adrian believes can bring him some semblance of peace. On the Chicago Review of Books website, Meredith Boe remarked: “With White’s engaging and compassionate storytelling, the book remains hopeful in Adrian’s searching.” A Bookreporter.com contributor wrote: “The Life List of Adrian Mandrick is a poignant, engaging story that heralds the arrival of a new literary talent.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2018, review of The Life List of Adrian Mandrick.
ONLINE
Bookreporter.com, https://bookreporter.com/ (June 18, 2018), review of The Life List of Adrian Mandrick.
Chicago Review of Books, https://chireviewofbooks.com/ (April 19, 2018), Meredith Boe, “‘Adrian Mandrick’ Has Seen More Birds Than You,” review of The Life List of Adrian Mandrick.
Chris White website, https://www.chriswhitewriter.com/ (June 18, 2018), author profile.
Simon & Schuster website, http://simonandschuster.com/ (June 18, 2018), author profile.
Writer, actor, filmmaker, vocalist. For a long time, I wished I could stick to one thing! But as I've grown as an artist, I've learned to embrace this "diversity of expression." When I was directing my short film Mud Lotus, I was grateful for my experience as theatre director, musician and sound recorder, actor, and dramatic writer. When I started teaching classes in creative writing at the university level, I was grateful for my experience creating workshops, producing albums, working with actors. As I drafted and redrafted my novel, I was happy to have experience as a screenwriter to give me a sense of structure, and playwriting to give my dialogue foundation, and years of making albums to give me perseverance and the ability to work in a small dark room, wishing somebody would bring me take-out. Chris White playwright Chris White screenwriter author
Born to a military family, with roots in rural Kentucky, l spent my childhood moving--from California to Alaska to D.C. to Las Vegas, from Kentucky to Florida to Colorado--to name a few. I received a BA in Theatre from the University of Colorado in Boulder, took additional training at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in Los Angeles, and earned an MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
My earliest work was as a playwright, singer and actor. While having early plays produced, I sang in musicals, an acapella jazz group, coffee houses, and cabarets and later recorded numerous albums with new age, world and contemporary instrumental musicians like Peter Kater, R. Carlos Nakai, David Darling, and Nawang Khechog, as well as albums Skeleton Woman and Pagan Saints with my co-founded group Flesh and Bone. (See Music link above for links.)
My plays have been produced nationally and internationally, including Rhythms (Helen Hayes Award winner for Outstanding New Play), Thespian (published by Smith & Kraus in Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2011), Two-Character Play (published by Allyn & Bacon in Explore Theatre digital textbook), and Sin Eater (commissioned by Hollins University). (See Plays link above for details.) My passion for theatre led to working in film, and my feature-length screenplays, Pain Management and Weasel in the Icebox, made first cut at Sundance Screenwriters Lab. Weasel in the Icebox won an Award of Merit at the Women's Independent Film Festival in Los Angeles. And I wrote, directed and produced short (24 minute) film Mud Lotus, which was an official selection at US Festivals. (See Film or Screenplays links above for more info.)
Through much of what came before, I wrote fiction. My novel The Life List of Adrian Mandrick was released in April, 2018 by Touchstone Books (Simon & Schuster) thanks to my wonderful editor Lara Blackman and equally wonderful agent Tim Wojcik of Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency. (See Novel link for a closer look.) I'm working on a second novel now.
Since 2002, I've taught creative writing at DePauw University near Greencastle Indiana, where I specialize in upper-level workshops in playwriting and screenwriting and courses in dramatic literature, living with my family alongside Big Walnut Creek.
Chris White is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, with an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her plays have been produced nationally and internationally, and her play, Rhythms, won the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play. She received an Award of Merit at the Women’s Independent Film Festival for her feature-length screenplay, Weasel in the Icebox, and her short film, Mud Lotus, was an official selection at the New Hampshire, Albany, and Cincinnati Film Festivals. White is a professor of English at DePauw University teaching creative writing. She lives near the town of Bainbridge, Indiana on Big Walnut Creek. The Life List of Adrian Mandrick is her first novel.
White, Chris: THE LIFE LIST OF ADRIAN
MANDRICK
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 15, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
White, Chris THE LIFE LIST OF ADRIAN MANDRICK Touchstone/Simon & Schuster (Adult Fiction) $24.99 4, 17 ISBN: 978-1-5011-7430-8
A pill-popping anesthesiologist and bird-watcher is forced to confront his past when his estranged mother dies.
Adrian Mandrick seems to live a perfect life: He has a beautiful wife, Stella, two bright young children, a well-paying job, and the distinction of
possessing the third-longest bird-watching "life-list" in North America. That is, he's seen more unique species of birds in North America than all
but two people...and one of them just died, so the No. 2 spot is closer than ever. But Adrian is also addicted to prescription drugs and has kept his
past a secret from everyone, including Stella and his closest friends. When he was a child, his mother ran away from his father with him and his
brother, and when his father found them a year later, he informed Adrian that his mother had molested him when he was too young to remember.
Adrian is now estranged from both of his parents, and when his mother suddenly tries to get back in touch, he ignores her calls. But her
reappearance nevertheless sends him into a downward spiral that takes him from adultery to illness to the obsessive pursuit of the supposedly
extinct ivory-billed woodpecker. White, who has an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU and teaches creative writing at DePauw University,
makes her debut with this frustrating novel. Adrian's cavalier disregard for his advantages in life makes it hard to sympathize with him,
particularly since White's treatment of his abuse is superficial and unconvincing. Stella is also reduced to a stereotype of an unhappy wife. The
medical and ornithological components of the novel are deeply researched, and Adrian's love of birds is its most compelling feature. But White
hints at themes connected to his passion that are never fully explored, including climate change and Adrian's Native American heritage.
Ultimately, the novel feels more like a collection of ideas than a finished product.
An unsatisfying character study of a middle-aged man in crisis that fails to distinguish itself from others of its type.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"White, Chris: THE LIFE LIST OF ADRIAN MANDRICK." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527248211/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ea688217. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A527248211
A long “life list,” if you are a serious birder, is a big deal. A life list compiles every bird you’ve seen and identified in your lifetime, and you must be 100% certain about each one. Some lifelong birders have seen over 9,000 different species of birds, and with species becoming endangered all the time, birders have to follow sightings wherever they’re reported — a kind of blind trust that leads them traipsing all over the world for a chance to glimpse one tiny creature.
From award-winning playwright and screenwriter Chris White comes her first novel, The Life List of Adrian Mandrick, an account of one man’s search for rare birds and stability. Here, amidst the worst opioid epidemic in the United States, is a story of a pill-addicted, middle-aged doctor and father of two, “happily” married and living in Colorado. A birder since his mother introduced him to rare species as a young boy, Adrian side-steps many of his personal problems by delving into the wilderness, searching for new species to make his life list longer than those of his peers—one of whom just died and opened up a spot for Adrian to have the second-longest life list. But to do so, Adrian must add a bird to his list ASAP, preferably the ivory-billed woodpecker.
For better or worse, birding is not what comprises the meat of the book. White has written a somewhat traditional mid-life crisis story, but one that is stunningly honest. It’s easy to cheer for Adrian as he makes all kinds of cringe-worthy decisions. Even more slack is given once we learn of a disturbing incident in Adrian’s childhood, a tip his abusive father left him with when the family fell apart. Adrian spent his life searching his memory for clues about whether or not it really happened. As if an excuse for returning to pill-popping, at one point Adrian reasons that all he’s ever wanted “is to make life less brutal.”
Adrian is also ridden with anxiety about failings as a father and a husband. Alone with his thoughts at night, he can’t sleep. He thinks, “Anything can happen at any time. When the children were young, it was the fear of hot pots on the stove. Hotel windows . . . Now that they’re older, it’s bullies. Apathy. Terrorism.” His marriage is hanging on by a thread, as his wife, Stella, struggles to understand Adrian’s ups and downs.
Birding alone makes sense to Adrian. As a child he felt that “birds lifted everything up,” but that “inside the town with its concrete and its buildings, inside the houses with their rooms taped together like boxes, things were spilling, falling, gathering speed on their way to the ground.” These lilting inner flourishes are when White really shines.
At one point, Adrian assumes that he’s heard of most of the Native American tribes in the United States, until an internet search presents pages upon pages of tribe names. He “tries to take in this list, the incomprehensible depth and breadth of it. Where are they?” The answer is as mysterious to him as the extinct bird species that he’ll never get to see in his lifetime.
The rare bird that Adrian thinks he saw with his mother when he was a child but has never logged, the ivory-billed woodpecker, is extinct or close to extinction according to the American Birding Association, though people all over the country still make claims that they see one now and then (which is all true outside of the novel). This bird, and whether or not he saw it, comes to represent Adrian’s search for what he knows he will never find in his personal life: the truth about his childhood trauma, a better relationship with his mother, andclarity about fatherhood and marriage. And yet, with White’s engaging and compassionate storytelling, the book remains hopeful in Adrian’s searching.
“What if Adrian were to find the bird?” White teases. “He’d be loved (and envied). If there happened to be a mate as well, the bird might live on to reproduce, and with very special care from the experts, the species might be reestablished. There would be hope again.”
H IS FOR HAWK meets GRIEF IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS in this evocative debut novel about a pill-popping anesthesiologist and avid birder who embarks on a quest to find one of the world’s rarest species, allowing nothing to get in his way --- until he’s forced to confront his obsessions and what they’ve cost him.
Adrian Mandrick seems to have his life in perfect order with an excellent job in a Colorado hospital, a wife and two young children he loves deeply, and a serious passion for birding. His life list comprises 863 species correctly identified and cataloged --- it is, in fact, the third longest list in the North American region.
But Adrian holds dark secrets about his childhood --- secrets that threaten to consume him after he’s contacted by his estranged mother, and subsequently relapses into an addiction to painkillers. In the midst of his downward spiral, the legendary birder with the region’s second-longest life list dies suddenly, and Adrian receives an anonymous tip that could propel him to the very top: the extremely rare Ivory-billed Woodpecker, spotted deep in the swamplands of Florida’s Panhandle.
Combining sharp, elegant prose with environmental adventure, THE LIFE LIST OF ADRIAN MANDRICK is a poignant, engaging story that heralds the arrival of a new literary talent.