It was my fascination itself with the English language that made me a writer," Apple wrote in an essay for the New York Times Book Review. Its endless suggestiveness has carried me through many a plot, entertained me when nothing else could." Growing up in a Yiddish-speaking family, Apple writes a prose that is remarkably attuned to America's cultural and linguistic With the 1976 publication of The Oranging of America, and Other Stories, Apple established himself as one of America's most affectionate, humorous, and astute critics. Like other postmodernist writers, Apple describes famous historical figures and American pop cultural heroes mingling with his fictional characters. Howard Johnson, Norman Mailer, Fidel Castro, and J. Edgar Hoover are but some of the figures that have all turned up in Apple's fiction. One critic stated that Apple creates "the literary equivalent of a Magritte painting. Apple is currently a professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.