Robert Worth Bingham IV^[1][2] (March 14, 1966^[3] – November 28, 1999) was an American writer and a founding editor of the Open City Magazine.^[4]

A member of a wealthy family from Louisville, Kentucky, his great-grandfather was the politician and newspaper publisher Robert Worth Bingham,^[3] and his grandfather, Barry Bingham, Sr., went into the family newspaper businesses as an editor and publisher.^[2] Bingham's father, Robert Worth Bingham III (known by his middle name), who also worked in the family business and was expected to take over,^[5] was killed aged 34 in a car accident while on vacation at Cape Cod in 1966, when his son was only three months old.^[3][6]

Bingham graduated from Brown University in 1988. He then received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University.^[7]

After graduating from Columbia, his fiction and non-fiction appeared in The New Yorker, and he worked for two years as a reporter for the Cambodia Daily. He wrote the short story collection Pure Slaughter Value and the novel Lightning on the Sun.^[8]

Bingham died of a heroin overdose at age 33 on November 28, 1999, six months after marrying Vanessa Scharven Chase, daughter of Theodore Chase Jr, professor of biochemistry at Cook College, Rutgers University^[9] a Harvard graduate art historian,^[3] and five months before the publication of his novel.^[10]

Bingham was a close friend of musician Stephen Malkmus; Malkmus played a show at Bingham's wedding, and served as an usher at his funeral.^[11] The title of "Church on White," a song from Malkmus's debut album, Stephen Malkmus, refers to Bingham's old New York City address.^[11][12]

Bingham was also a friend of the late poet/musician David Berman (leader of the band Silver Jews); the song "Death Of An Heir of Sorrows", from Silver Jews' 2001 album Bright Flight, is an elegy for Bingham.^[13]

• Pure Slaughter Value (1997)
• Lightning on the Sun (2000)