Thomas Louis Berger (b. 1924) is an American novelist best known for his picaresque classic, Little Big Man (1964). His other works include Arthur Rex (1978), Neighbors (1980), and The Feud (1983), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Berger was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Thomas Charles, a public school business manager, and Mildred (née Bubbe) Berger. Berger grew up in the town of Lockland, Ohio, and one of his first jobs was working at a branch of the public library while in high school. After a brief period in college, Berger enlisted in the army in 1943 and served in Europe during World War II. His experiences with a medical unit in the American occupation zone of postwar Berlin inspired his first novel, Crazy in Berlin (1958). This novel introduced protagonist Carlo Reinhart, who would appear in several more novels.
In 1946, Berger reentered college at the University of Cincinnati, earning a bachelor’s degree two years later. In 1948, he moved to New York City and was hired as librarian of the Rand School of Social Science. While enrolled in a writer's workshop at the nearby New School for Social Research, Berger met artist Jeanne Redpath; they married in 1950. He subsequently entered Columbia University as a graduate student in English literature, but left the program after a year and a half without taking a degree. He next worked at the New York Times Index; at Popular Science Monthly as an associate editor; and, for a decade, as a freelance copy editor for book publishers.
Following the success of Rinehart in Love (1962), Berger was named a Dial Fellow. In 1965, he received the Western Heritage Award and the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters for Little Big Man (1964), the success of which allowed him to write full time. In 1970, Little Big Man was made into an acclaimed film, directed by Arthur Penn and starring Dustin Hoffman and Faye Dunaway.
Following his job as Esquire’s film critic from 1972 to 1973, Berger became a writer in residence at the University of Kansas in 1974. One year later, he became a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Southampton College, and went on to lecture at Yale University and the University of California, Davis.
Berger’s work continued to appear on the big screen. His novel Neighbors (1980) was adapted for a 1981 film starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. In 1984, his novel The Feud (1983) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; in 1988, it too was made into a movie. His thriller Meeting Evil (1992) was adapted as a 2012 film starring Samuel L. Jackson and Luke Wilson.
In 1999, Berger published The Return of Little Big Man, a sequel to his literary classic. His most recent novel, Adventures of the Artificial Woman, was published in 2004.
Berger lives ten feet from the Hudson River in Rockland County, New York.