A ‘Minor’ Author Gets the Last Laugh

A conversation with Robin Hemley, author of the brilliant new novel "Oblivion," a hilarious and poignant exploration of the life—and afterlife—of a “minor” author.

A depiction of a dybbuk by Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874–1925).

By Michael Judge

I first met Robin Hemley through email. It was 2005, four years after 9/11, and my office in Lower Manhattan had a birdseye view of The Pit, as we called it back then, the massive construction site where the Twin Towers once soared.

I was about to leave my job with The Wall Street Journal and move back to beautiful Iowa City, Iowa, home to the University of Iowa, my alma mater, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where I studied poetry in the early 1990s. Hemley was the director of the UI Nonfiction Writing Program at the time, and I was hoping to meet with him upon arrival, and, who knows, maybe teach a class or two.

My email began: “Dear Ms. Hemley …” And went on from there in the kind of ingratiating way such letters do, praising “her” work and requesting a meeting after my wife and I settled into our new home.

Hemley wrote back almost immediately: “Dear Mr. Judge, I’m a Mr. not a Ms. But not to worry, it happens …