Berger, Thomas

Berger, Thomas (bûr`gər), 1924–, American novelist, b. Cincinnati. He is known for bitterly comic novels that often deal with the chasm between the American dream and middle-class reality. His novelistic series Crazy in Berlin (1958), Reinhart in Love (1962), Vital Parts (1970), and Reinhart's Women (1981) follows a picaresque, sometime title character through the vagaries of four decades of 20th-century American life. Berger has also satirized several literary genres—the Western in Little Big Man (1964), perhaps his best known work, and its sequel, The Return of Little Big Man (1999); the detective story in Who Is Teddy Villanova? (1977); and the spy tale in Nowhere (1985). His other novels include The Feud (1983), Orrie's Story (1990), Meeting Evil (1992), Robert Crews (1994), Best Friends (2003), and Adventures of the Artificial Woman (2004).