Peter Cameron (novelist)

Cameron was born and raised in the Pompton Plains section of Pequannock Township, New Jersey.[5] He graduated in English literature in 1982 from Hamilton College. Cameron lived in Pompton Plains, London, and, later, New York City.[6]

In 1983, he published his first short story (Memorial Day) in The New Yorker; he then continued to contribute to the magazine in the following years.[7] His first book was a collection of short stories entitled One Way or Another, published by Harper & Row in 1986. His debut novel Leap Year was published by Harper & Row in 1990. His second novel, The Weekend,[8] was edited in 1994 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and adapted as the Brian Skeet film of the same name released in November 2000.[2] In 1997, Farrar, Straus and Giroux published Cameron's next novel, Andorra,[9] and The City of Your Final Destination in 2002,[10] (which in 2009 was adapted into a film of the same name directed by James Ivory).[3] In October 2007, Cameron's young adult novel Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You was published,[11][1] and in October 2012 it was adapted into a film of the same name.[4] In March 2012, he published Coral Glynn.[12] His last novel, What Happens at Night, was published by Catapult in August 2020.[13]

In addition to his work as a writer, he has taught at Columbia, Yale and Sarah Lawrence College. Between 1990 and 1998, he worked for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.[14] In 2020, he founded Wallflower Press, whose name had to change in January 2014 to Shrinking Violet Press due to a rights conflict with Columbia University.[15][16]

Cameron was influenced by authors such as Rose Macaulay, Barbara Pym and Margaret Drabble,[17] borrowing their aptitude for probing individual lives.