Houston Chronicle (TX) - Sunday, November 21, 1993--Scott Sommer, a novelist and screenwriter known for his quirky, tragicomic characters, died at his home in Manhattan. He was 42. The cause was a heart attack, said his father, Stanley Sommer.

Sommer was the author of "Nearing's Grace" (1979); "Lifetime" (1981), a collection of short stories and novellas; "Last Resort" (1982); "Hazzard's Head" (1985), and "Still Lives" (1989).

Writing in The New York Times Book Review, Jonathan Baumbach said Sommer's work was "post-modern in its imaginative use of literary form," adding that his "sensibility is romantic in the way of J.D. Salinger and F. Scott Fitzgerald."
 

Sommer also wrote the screenplay for the 1992 film "Crisscross", starring Goldie Hawn. Caryn James, writing in The Times, called the film "a deeply touching and tough-minded treatment of motherhood and adolescence." The film was based on Sommer's novella of the same name from the "Lifetime" collection.

Sommer was born Feb. 20, 1951, and grew up in South Orange, N.J. A graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, he received a master's degree in fine arts for creative writing at Cornell University.

Sommer's fifth novel will be published posthumously, his father said. In addition to his parents, of South Orange, he is survived by a brother, Dean Sommer, of Voorheesville, N.Y.