Alan Cheuse, novelist, teacher and book reviewer and commentator on NPR, died on Friday. He was 75 and had been severely injured in a car crash earlier last month when he was driving from the annual conference of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, where he led fiction workshops, to Santa Cruz, Calif.
Speaking with NPR, his daughter Sonya Cheuse, who is director of publicity at Ecco, said, "On behalf of the family, we are in deep grief at the loss of our beloved father, husband and grandfather. He was the brightest light in our family. He will always remain in our hearts. We thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support."
Cheuse had worked more than 25 years at NPR, taught creative writing at George Mason University and wrote five novels. (Prayers for the Living was published in March by Fig Tree Books.) He was beloved by so many who love books and writing.
Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books, told NPR that he met Cheuse early in his bookselling career: "He became a friend and a mentor, and someone I admired so greatly. So willing to promote other writers. So involved and appreciative of the work that anyone was doing. He always took so much pride in what others were doing."