Caleb Carr
Caleb Carr is the talented author of the Alienist books. Included here is basic information on Mr Carr, a mini biography, and information on his other book and film credits.
Basic Information
Date of Birth: August 2, 1955
Place of Birth: Lower East Side, New York City, NY, USA
Parents: Francesca von Hartz and Lucien Carr
Siblings: Simon Carr (older brother) and Ethan Carr (younger brother)
Education: B. A. in History at New York University
Currently Resides: On a farm estate called “Misery Mountain”. It is located in Berlin, a town in Rensselaer County, NY.
Mini Biography
Caleb Carr was born in 1955 to Francesca von Hartz and Lucien Carr, a key figure in the Beat generation. Despite the ideals set forth by this movement, he had a childhood far from the idyllic. Within a 2005 article in The Age, Carr commented on his father’s circle: “They were noisy drunks that were a disruption. They made me determined never to be a fiction writer.” Of course, the very reason that this mini biography is being written is because, despite his earlier sentiments, Carr was not able to escape a talent for the written word and has gone on to have a successful career as a novelist. Part of the reason why he gave into the pen is revealed in a BookPage interview in which Carr explains that he was prompted into writing as a form of anger management: “I had a terrible temper when I was a kid and I would take anger and say, ‘OK, you can’t smash the window again or scream at somebody or kick somebody or whatever. You’ve got to sit down and try to organize your thoughts into a well-reasoned argument.’” This attitude, and indeed the content of much of his fiction, can be better understood when placed in the context of his childhood and adolescence.
It is Caleb's father, Lucien Carr, who is perhaps the most important figure in his early life. In 1944, Lucien stabbed and killed an associate, David Kammerer, before dumping his body in the Hudson River. He pled guilty to manslaughter in court, claiming that Kammerer had a homosexual obsession with him. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for murder but was released after two years. His later home life was not free of violence either; Caleb Carr has told many times of the physical abuse that he and his siblings suffered at the hands of his father. Although Caleb disapproves of ‘serious literary figures’ who “never tire of retelling [their] own personal story in only slightly varied forms”, this aspect of his childhood has almost certainly been incorporated into the protagonist of his Alienist books, Laszlo Kreizler. Kreizler was written to have an alcoholic, abusive father who disliked his son immensely as he felt threatened when, it is assumed, Laszlo spoke his mind regarding his father’s actions. This aspect of Kreizler’s character also appears to have originated in Carr himself as he has stated that: “[My father] was enormously threatened by me, from the time I was a child – threatened by my tendency to speak what I perceived.”
Despite using writing as a way to deal with aspects of his life that angered him, Caleb Carr was not immediately drawn into fiction. After working for a time for the journal Foreign Affairs, he attended New York University where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in History. Carr’s particular interest in this area lies in political and military history and he has gone on to write and contribute to several non-fiction works in these areas beginning with America Invulnerable in 1989, to The Lessons of Terror in 2002, and most recently, The Cold War: A Military History in 2006. He is the editor of the Modern Library War Series and is a contributing editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. He has also taught military history as a visiting Professor at Bard University. In 2005, Carr thought that his knowledge in these fields would help him in running as a Democrat for the Rensselaer County Legislature but he was not successful.
Caleb has also worked in fields outside of academia and politics. In the 1990s, he worked on several TV mini series and films as a presenter, an executive producer, and a writer. Most notably, he was credited as a co-writer for Exorcist: The Beginning and Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist in 2004 and 2005 respectively. Despite these varying areas of interest, his success in fiction is perhaps his most notable accomplishment. According to an Amazon.com self-review, his first novel Casing The Promised Land (1980) is not a piece he is proud of, although his subsequent work has been highly successful. Starting in 1994 with The Alienist, Carr has gone on to write other popular novels including The Angel of Darkness (1997), Killing Time (2000), and The Italian Secretary (2005).
Although it is uncertain what Caleb Carr is working on at the present time, an interview in The Age in 2005 has reported that a third Alienist novel is in progress.
Book & Film Works
Writer – bookography
1. The Italian Secretary (2005 | fiction)
2. The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians (2002 | non-fiction)
3. Killing Time (2000 | fiction)
4. The Angel of Darkness (1997 | fiction)
5. The Alienist (1994 | fiction)
6. The Devil Soldier (1992 | non-fiction)
7. America Invulnerable: The Quest For Absolute Security from 1812 to Star Wars (1989 | non-fiction)
co-written with James Chace
8. Casing The Promised Land (1980 | fiction)
Contributor - bookography
1. The Cold War: A Military History (2006 | non-fiction)
essay contributor with Stephen E. Ambrose, Thomas Fleming, Victor Hanson, and others
2. The Ghosts in Baker Street: New Tales of Sherlock Holmes (2006 | fiction)
essay contributor; edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Jon Lellenberg, and Daniel Stashower
3. Exorcist: The Beginning (2003 | fiction)
co-wrote story with William Wisher; novelisation by Steven Piziks; screenplay by Alexi Hawley
4. No End Save Victory: Perspectives on World War II (2001 | non-fiction)
essay contributor with Stephen E. Ambrose, John Keegan, William Manchester, and others
Note that in addition to this list, Caleb Carr has contributed introductions to several classic works of non-fiction and fiction. These were not included in this list.
Writer - filmography
1. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005 | movie)
co-written with William Wisher
2. The Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy (1998 | TV)
3. Bad Attitudes (1991 | TV)
Contributor - filmography
1. Exorcist: The Beginning (2004 | movie)
co-wrote story with William Wisher; screenplay by Alexi Hawley
Actor - filmography
1. 200 Cigarettes (1999 | movie) .... Cynical Bar Patron
Executive Producer - filmography
1. The Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy (1998 | TV)
Self - filmography
1. New York: A Documentary Film (1999 | TV mini series)
2. Biography - Jack the Ripper: Phantom of Death (???? | TV episode)