Remembering Robert Birnbaum
Power to the Peaceful
Friends of Identity Theory,
Sad news in this newsletter. Two weeks ago, I confirmed what I had suspected for years: Robert Birnbaum has passed away.
Robert Birnbaum was one of the first major voices of our magazine. Beginning in 2000, he contributed hundreds of longform author interviews and book-related musings to Identity Theory. He published work on our site for 17 years and had a significant influence on our publication and the overall online literary landscape, especially during the lit blogging peak in the mid-2000s. Beyond Identity Theory, his interviews regularly appeared in The Morning News, and his work also made its way to lit mags such as The Believer and The Virginia Quarterly Review and newspapers such as The Washington Post. In the last decade of his life, he maintained a personal blog/archive called Our Man in Boston.
Robert’s official title at Identity Theory was editor-at-large. Cynthia Ozick once referred to him as a “bookish journalist” in a NY Times piece, and that may be his most fitting description. Beyond his interviews and short posts (he hated the word “blog” and thought “weblog” sounded better, so I won’t call him a “blogger”), he helped guide the direction of our site in the early years. We had common sensibilities when it came to playfulness, compassion, and informality. A longtime friend of Howard Zinn (to whom he introduced me in 2003), Birnbaum despised marketing language and cheap descriptions of people. I recall in one instance he insisted that I not refer to Christopher Rice in the context of his mother Anne’s writing when promoting their interview, wanting Chris’s work to stand on its own. We both believed in letting the work, and the writer, speak for itself. Robert did not refer to himself as a book critic but rather a book enthusiast, and that’s an attitude Identity Theory as a whole has strived to maintain throughout the decades.
Birnbaum was an extremely hard worker when it came to author interviews. He thoughtfully read the books of every writer he interviewed. He drove significant distances in Boston weather to meet with them in person for hourlong conversations, usually at his friend’s modeling agency on Newbury Street. He transcribed thousands of words per interview. Then together we would spend several hours editing and preparing each interview. This level of dedication to each book and author was rare at the time and is nearly nonexistent today.
Robert was also a dog lover, and his photos of his Labrador, Rosie, appeared prominently on Identity Theory decades before my corgi, Iroh, became the canine face of the magazine.
Robert didn’t live to meet Iroh. The beginning of the pandemic brought about a lull in correspondence, and he went dark on social media and email in late 2020. For the past three years, I operated under the assumption that he had either passed away or abruptly become incapacitated, though I hoped he had simply gone off to an internet-free cabin in the New England woods to re-read books by his friends Richard Russo and Jim Harrison without interruption.
I Googled him without results. I emailed him without responses. Three years went by. Finally, two weeks ago, when revisiting his Identity Theory interview with Gabe Hudson, I found an Instagram notice of Robert’s death from late 2020 on the account of a person I don’t follow. And then I found a single tweet from December 2020 by another person I don’t follow. Based on those posts, I learned that Robert Birnbaum passed away from cancer during the holiday season of 2020, around the time our news feeds were flooded with election denial.
So I heard about his passing on the same day I learned of Gabe Hudson’s death, which was a lot to process. Both men were dog-loving literary citizens who were avid cheerleaders of writers and passionate social critics. Their deaths were massive losses for the literary community.
I’ll have more to say about Birnbaum (aka “Red Diaz” aka “Izzy,” etc.) in the coming months. I’d also like to compile a collection of memories of him. If you want to share your recollections of Robert Birnbaum, please respond to this email (or message me at editor@identitytheory.com).
The Birnbaum Archives
Robert Birnbaum’s Identity Theory interviews, photos, and posts
Birnbaum’s weblog at wordpress.com (his domain ourmaninboston dot com has been taken over by bots but the older Wordpress archive still exists)
Power to the Peaceful,*
Matt Borondy
Founding EIC
Identity Theory
*Birnbaum had a few favorite email signoffs, including “Power to the Peaceful” and “Take it easy but take it.” His final email to me simply said, “Thanks.”
___
P.S. Staff applications and CNF fiction and submissions are open. I’ll send another newsletter early next week with new stories and other updates. Re-read something you love this weekend.
Thank you so much for this memorial, Matt.