This Goodly Land

Daniel Wallace (1959–present)

Alabama Connections

• Mountain View, Jefferson County: birthplace, childhood residence
• Cullman, Cullman County: grandparents’ home, frequent childhood visits

Selected Works

• Wallace, Daniel. Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1998.
• Wallace, Daniel. Ray in Reverse. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2000.
• Wallace, Daniel. The Watermelon King. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.
• Wallace, Daniel. Off the Map. Cary, N.C.: Two Cranes Press, 2005.
• Wallace, Daniel. Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician: A Novel. New York: Doubleday, 2007.

Literary Awards

• Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, The North Carolina Literary & Historical Association, 2008, for Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician

Biographical Information

Daniel Wallace was born and raised in Mountain View, a suburb of Birmingham, Ala. He had a complicated relationship with his father, whose marriage to his mother ended in divorce. Wallace attended Emory University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill but left before graduating. He lived and worked in Japan for two years, then returned to Chapel Hill. He took a job in a bookstore and began to write in his spare time. It was thirteen years before he sold his first novel, Big Fish. During that time, he supported himself and his family as an illustrator. He currently writes both novels and short stories.

Interests and Themes

Daniel Wallace’s novels are episodic in structure, with elements of magical realism and allusions to classical mythology. They frequently highlight father-son relationships. Two of his books are set in the fictional Alabama town of Ashland, based on Cullman.

For More Information

Please check your local library for these materials. If items are not available locally, your librarian can help you borrow them through the InterLibrary Loan program. Your librarian can also help you find other information about this author.

There may be more information available through the databases in the Alabama Virtual Library. If you are an Alabama citizen, AVL can be used at your public library or school library media center. You can also get a username and password from your librarian to use AVL at home.

Reference Articles

• Eubanks, Michelle Rupe. "Daniel Wallace, Himself". First Draft Fall. 2003: 2-7.

Reference Web Sites

• "Interview with Daniel Wallace". Southern Literary Review. 2004. http://www.southernlitreview.com/authors/daniel_wallace_interview.htm.
• Wallace, Daniel. danielwallace.org. 2005. http://www.danielwallace.org/.

Photo by John Rosenthal; courtesy of Daniel Wallace.

Last updated on May 21, 2009.