Robert Kirsch

Robert R. Kirsch He moved out of Coney Island at the age of 17. He was one of the first critics to praise the works of Joseph Wambaugh and Tom Sanchez.

Kirsch authored several books about California and Las Vegas. He used the pennames of Robert Dundee and Robert Bancroft.

Death and legacy

Kirsch died of cancer on August 16, 1980, in Santa Barbara, California. A public funeral was held in the chapel of the American Jewish University in Bel Air. He is the namesake of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize's Robert Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Selected works In the Wrong Rain (1959) Madeleine Austrian (1960) The Wars of Pardon (1965) West of the West: Witnesses to the California Experience, 1542-1906; The Story of California from the Conquistadores to the Great Earthquake (1967) Lives, Works, & Transformations: A Quarter Century of Book Reviews and Essays (1978) Casino: A Novel of Las Vegas (1979)