Novelist, strategist, storyteller, and writer of character-driven literary fiction. Author of Cities of the Common Man and Grassfed Animals.
Creator of literary fiction about ordinary People under extraordinary pressure, and the lies, loyalties, and the stories they tell to survive them.
Biography
Ben Hasskamp writes dark, character-driven literary fiction about ordinary communities under extraordinary pressure, combining the moral complexity of Russell Banks with the social observation of Tom Perrotta and the narrative momentum of Dennis Lehane.
His fiction is interested in what happens after the event everyone thinks the story is about: how communities assign blame, how memory changes under pressure, how people protect themselves, and how a shared truth slowly becomes a collection of competing stories.
My Work.
My debut novel, Cities of the Common Man, is available on Amazon.
My work has appeared in the Mark Literary Review,Diverse Voice Quarterly,Curious Fiction, Lit Up and The Junction. I was named a finalist in Glimmer Train Press' 2018 Short Story Award and Carve Magazine’s Paris Summer Writing Workshop.
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“Hasskamp’s debut novel is a unique and oddly endearing tale of self-discovery.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Why Ben Hasskamp?
Because the worst day of someone’s life is rarely the whole story.
Ben Hasskamp writes about what comes before and what remains afterward: the grudges nobody admits to holding, the memories that change with time, the private failures hidden behind public explanations and the stories communities create when the truth becomes too complicated to live with.
His fiction places flawed, recognizable people inside circumstances larger than themselves and lets them remain complicated. The grieving can be selfish. The guilty can be sympathetic. Good people can make terrible decisions. And even in the middle of tragedy, people can still be vain, petty, funny, jealous and absurd.
The result is literary fiction with momentum: psychologically and morally complicated stories that still move.
For readers of Russell Banks, Tom Perrotta, Dennis Lehane, Richard Russo and Celeste Ng, Hasskamp’s work occupies the space between literary character study and page-turning narrative, where private lives collide with public events and no one gets to leave with exactly the same version of what happened.
About Me.
Ben Hasskamp is a novelist, fiction writer and editor whose work explores what happens when ordinary people and communities are placed under extraordinary pressure.
His fiction is dark, character-driven and interested in the gap between what people believe about themselves and what others can plainly see. He writes about grief, memory, violence, reputation, family mythology and the stories people tell themselves to make difficult things survivable.
Hasskamp is the author of Cities of the Common Man and Grassfed Animals. His fiction and essays have appeared in literary publications, and his work often combines the moral complexity of Russell Banks, the social observation of Tom Perrotta and the narrative momentum of Dennis Lehane.
He studied film, screenwriting and creative writing at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. Outside of fiction, he has spent his career as an editor and content strategist, working with executives, journalists and technology companies to turn complicated ideas into clear, compelling stories.
He grew up in Minnesota and lives in California.