Mark Harris (author)
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| Mark Harris | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 19, 1922 Mount Vernon, New York |
| Died | May 30, 2007 Santa Barbara, California |
Mark Harris (November 19, 1922 in Mount Vernon, New York– May 30, 2007) was an American novelist, literary biographer, and educator.
Contents |
[edit] Life and career
Harris was best known for a quartet of novels about baseball players: The Southpaw (1953), Bang the Drum Slowly (1956), A Ticket for a Seamstitch (1957), and It Looked Like For Ever (1979). Written in the vernacular, the books are the account of Henry "Author" Wiggen, a pitcher for the fictional New York Mammoths. In 1956, Bang the Drum Slowly was adapted for an installment of the dramatic television anthology series The United States Steel Hour; the production starred Paul Newman as Wiggen and Albert Salmi as doomed catcher Bruce Pearson. The novel also became a major motion picture in 1973, with a screenplay written by Harris, directed by John D. Hancock and featuring Michael Moriarty as Wiggen and Robert De Niro as Pearson.[1]
Harris was born Mark Harris Finklestein in Mount Vernon, New York. After serving in the Armed Forces during World War II, Harris worked as a journalist in New York City, St. Louis, and Chicago before enrolling at the University of Denver, from which he received a Master's degree in 1951. He obtained a PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota in 1956 and went on to teach at several universities, eventually settling at Arizona State, where he was a professor of English and taught in the creative writing program from 1980 to 2001.[2]
His first novel, Trumpet to the World, was published in 1946, and he continued to produce novels and contribute to periodicals through the years.
Harris died of complications of Alzheimer's Disease at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital at age 84[3]. He was survived by his wife, Josephine Horen, his sister, Martha, two sons, one daughter, and three grandchildren.
[edit] Selected works
[edit] Novels
- Trumpet to the World (1946)
- The Southpaw (1953)
- Bang the Drum Slowly (1956)
- Something about a Soldier (1957)
- A Ticket for a Seamstitch (1957)
- Wake Up, Stupid (1959)
- The Goy (1970)
- Killing Everybody (1973)
- It Looked Like For Ever (1979)
- Lying In Bed (1984)
- Speed (1990)
- The Tale Maker (1994)
[edit] Nonfiction
- City of Discontent: An Interpretive Biography of Vachel Lindsay (1952)
- Mark the Glove Boy, or The Last Days of Richard Nixon (1964)
- Twentyone Twice: A Journal (1966)
- Best Father Ever Invented: The Autobiography Of Mark Harris (1976)
- Saul Bellow: Drumlin Woodchuck (1980)
- Diamond - The Baseball Writings of Mark Harris (collection, 1994)
[edit] Plays
- Friedman & Son (1963)
[edit] As editor
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- The Mark Harris Papers, 1937 - 1982 at the University of Delaware.
- The Mark Harris Papers Supplement, 1958 - 2002 at the University of Delaware.
- Mark Harris at the Internet Movie Database
