Dean Bakopoulos (born 1975 inDearborn Heights, Michigan) is an American writer. He is a two-timeNational Endowment for the Arts fellow, aGuggenheim Fellow,^[1] and associate professor of cinema and head of the new screenwriting program at the University of Iowa. Bakopoulos has a B.A. from theUniversity of Michigan and an M.F.A. degree from theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also a faculty member in theWarren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers.

Please Don't Come Back from the Moon (2005) was his debut novel, about fathers in Maple Rock,Detroit abandoning their families under a strange compulsion to go to the Moon. It is narrated by the young Mikey, a would-be writer, whose father feels the same desire to leave.The New York Times said it "deftly weld[ed] magic realism with social satire".^[2] Entertainment Weekly gave it a B− saying it turned into a very conventional coming-of-age story.^[3]People gave it 3.5/4.^[4]

In 2017, James Franco's Rabbit Bandini films released a film version of the novel, entitledDon't Come Back from the Moon, starring Franco, Rashida Jones, and Jeffrey Wahlberg. Bruce Thierry Cheung directed the film version, which was co-written by Bakopoulos.^[5]

My American Unhappiness (2011), his second novel, is narrated by Zeke Pappas, a young man compiling an inventory of American unhappiness for a struggling non-profit organization.The New York Times found Bakopoulos charming but the book too frivolous and arch.^[6] TheLos Angeles Times found that some of the characters were one-dimensional, there only to advance the plot, but found the satire was pleasantly combined with warmth and affection for its subjects.^[7]

Summerlong, his third novel, was published by Ecco in June 2015.^[8] It was named a "best book" of 2017 by National Public Radio, which praised its sadly funny vibe, saying, "this book nails the entropy of adulthood."

In September 2015 he marriedAlissa Nutting. They createdMade For Love, a television series based on Nutting's novelMade For Love, which premiered on HBO Max in 2021 and starredCristin Milioti,Ray Romano, andNoma Dumezweni. They divorced after the show's second season.

• Please Don't Come Back from the Moon, Harcourt (2005)
• My American Unhappiness, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2011)
• Summerlong, Ecco Press (June, 2015)

• Official website

• Living people
• American male novelists
• American writers of Greek descent
• University of Michigan alumni
• University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
• Warren Wilson College faculty
• Grinnell College faculty
• 21st-century American novelists
• 21st-century American male writers
• Novelists from Iowa
• 1975 births
• People from Dearborn Heights, Michigan

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Date of birth not in Wikidata