Ian Frazier is a staff writer. He has been contributing to The New Yorker since 1974, when he published his first piece in The Talk of the Town. A year later, the magazine ran his short story “The Bloomsbury Group Live at the Apollo.” Since then, he has published numerous nonfiction, Shouts and Murmurs, Talk of the Town pieces, and short stories in the magazine. Frazier is the author of eight books, including “Dating Your Mom,” (1986) and “Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody,” (1987). His 1989 book, “Great Plains,” began as a three-part “Reporter at Large” series for the magazine. “Family,” (1994) tells the history of his family in America from the early colonial days to the present, reconstructing two hundred years of middle-class life. His other books include “Coyote v. Acme,” (1996), “On the Rez,” (2000), “The Fish’s Eye,” (2002), and “Gone to New York: Adventures in the City,” (2005). He published a collection of humor essays, “Lamentations of the Father,” in 2008. Frazier lives in New Jersey.