Mona Simpson is an acclaimed American novelist known for her insightful explorations of family dynamics, identity, and personal relationships.
Born Mona Jandali on June 14, 1957, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, she is the daughter of Joanne Carole Schieble, a Swiss-German American speech pathologist, and Abdulfattah “John” Jandali, a Syrian immigrant.
Simpson grew up primarily with her mother after her parents’ divorce, moving to Los Angeles as a teenager.
She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University.
Siblings
Simpson’s only biological sibling is her older brother, the late Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Inc.
Their parents placed Jobs for adoption as an infant in 1955 because they were unmarried at the time and faced family opposition to their relationship.
After Jobs’ adoption, Joanne and Abdulfattah married briefly and had Mona in 1957.
The couple later divorced, and Mona grew up unaware of her brother’s existence, believing for years that her absent father might resemble a figure like Omar Sharif.
She met Steve Jobs for the first time at age 25 in 1985 or 1986, after an attorney contacted her.
Simpson dedicated her debut novel to her mother and “my brother Steve,” and she delivered a poignant eulogy at his memorial service in 2011.
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Career
Simpson began her literary career while working as an editor at The Paris Review in New York.
Her debut novel, Anywhere But Here (1986), became a bestseller and was later adapted into a 1999 film starring Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman.
The book follows a mother-daughter relationship marked by restlessness and ambition.
She followed it with The Lost Father (1992), a sequel exploring themes of abandonment and search for identity.
Subsequent novels include A Regular Guy (1996), which features a tech entrepreneur reminiscent of Jobs; Off Keck Road (2000), depicting the lives of three women in the Midwest over decades; My Hollywood (2010), examining nanny-mother relationships in Los Angeles; Casebook (2014), narrated by a boy uncovering family secrets; and Commitment (2023), focusing on siblings navigating their mother’s mental health struggles and institutionalization in 1970s California.
Simpson has taught English at UCLA and Bard College, and in 2020 she became publisher of The Paris Review.
Accolades
Simpson received the Whiting Award for Anywhere But Here in 1986. Off Keck Road was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize.
Other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Writers’ Award, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, and a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2008.
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