Mona Elizabeth Simpson (née Jandali; born June 14, 1957)

She won a Whiting Award for her first novel, Anywhere but Here (1986). It was a popular success and adapted as a film by the same name, released in 1999. She wrote a sequel, The Lost Father (1992). Critical recognition has included the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and making the shortlist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for her novel Off Keck Road (2000).

She is the biological younger sister of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. She was born after her parents had married and did not meet Jobs, who was placed for adoption after he was born, until she was 25 years old.

Early life

Mona Jandali was born on June 14, 1957, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to a Swiss-German American mother, Joanne Carole Schieble, and a Syrian father, Abdulfattah "John" Jandali (Arabic: عبد الفتاح الجندلي). While Jandali and Schieble were still unmarried students at the University of Wisconsin in 1954, Schieble became pregnant and, given her parents' resistance to the relationship, decided to place the baby for adoption. Six months after she placed the baby for adoption, Schieble's father died, and she then wed Jandali and gave birth to Mona. They divorced in 1962. When Schieble remarried, both she and Mona took the name of her new husband, George Simpson. In 1970, after they divorced, Schieble took Mona to Los Angeles and raised her on her own. but did not receive it. She then attended graduate school at Columbia University and received her M.F.A from there. While a student at Columbia University, she was an editor for Paris Review. Her first novel, Anywhere But Here (1986), was a critical and popular success, winning a Whiting Award. In describing her intentions for the novel, Simpson stated:

<blockquote>I wanted to write about American mythologies, American yearnings that might be responses, delayed or exaggerated but in some way typical, to the political and social truths of our part of the world in our century. But I wrote very personally about one family. I think it takes a long time before a crisis—like AIDS—enters the culture to a point where responses exist in a character, where personal gestures are both individual and resonant in a larger way.</blockquote>It was adapted as the 1999 film Anywhere But Here, starring Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman. Simpson published a sequel, The Lost Father (1992).

A Regular Guy (1996) explores the strained relationship of a Silicon Valley tycoon with a daughter born out of wedlock, whom he did not acknowledge. My Hollywood was published in 2011. It explores the complex relationships, issues of class, and perspectives of two women, Claire, a European-American composer in her 30s and mother of one son, and Lola, her immigrant nanny from the Philippines. The nanny supports her own five children in the Philippines. The novel alternates between the voices of the two women, contrasting their worlds.

Personal life

Simpson married television writer and producer Richard Appel in 1993 and had two children. Appel, a writer for The Simpsons, named Homer Simpson's mother Mona Simpson after his wife, beginning with the episode "Mother Simpson". They later divorced. Simpson's paternal cousins include Malek Jandali and Bassma Al Jandaly.

Works

Novels

  • Anywhere But Here (1986)
  • The Lost Father (1992)
  • A Regular Guy (1996)
  • Off Keck Road (2000)
  • My Hollywood (2010)
  • Casebook (2014)
  • Commitment (2023)

Short stories

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  • (Free to read/download under creative commons license)
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Essays

  • "A Sister's Eulogy for Steve Jobs." The New York Times, October 30, 2011.

Awards

  • 1986, Whiting Award
  • 2008, Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters

References

  • Mona Simpson at Biography.com
  • Profile at the Whiting Foundation