Mark Harris (author)

Mark Harris (author)
Mark Harris
Born Mark Harris Finklestein
November 19, 1922(1922-11-19)
Mount Vernon, New York
Died May 30, 2007(2007-05-30) (aged 84)
Santa Barbara, California
Nationality United States American
Alma mater University of Denver
Occupation Writer
Known for Author of the Bang the Drum Slowly
Parents Carlyle
Ruth

Mark Harris (November 19, 1922 – May 30, 2007) was an American novelist, literary biographer, and educator.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Harris was born Mark Harris Finklestein in Mount Vernon, New York to Carlyle and Ruth Klausner Finkelstein. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1943 and was out by 1944 due to an honorable discharge after suffering from sustained severe anxiety.

Reporter

Harris worked as a journalist in New York City at The Daily Item in 1944 and worked for PM in 1945. He worked in St. Louis at the International News Service 1945-1946. He also worked in Chicago at Negro Digest and Ebony 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.[1]

Writing career

His first novel, Trumpet to the World, the story of a young black soldier married to a white woman who is put on trial for striking back at a white officer, was published in 1946, and he continued to produce novels and contribute to periodicals through the years. In 1960, while in his first college teaching position, at San Francisco State College, Harris promoted his then-most-recent book in a TV appearance as guest contestant in "You Bet Your Life", the game played on The Groucho Show.[2]

In the first chapter of his 1961 classic The Rhetoric of Fiction, Wayne C. Booth quotes the "fine young novelist" Harris as saying "You will no more expect the novelist to tell you precisely how something is said than you will expect him to stand by your chair and hold your book".

His last works dealt humorously with the ambitions of a would-be novelist (The Tale Maker) and to a lesser extent with Hitler's preoccupation with the recovery from Vienna of the talismanic spear supposed to have been used on the body of the dying Christ (The Spear of Destiny).

In 1996 Something about a Soldier was adapted to the stage by Ernest Kinoy and produced by the Theater Guild. Later, the movie and novel of Bang the Drum Slowly was adapted in 1992 into a stage play at the Next Theatre in Evanston, Illinois.

His nephew (the son of Harris's sister Martha Finkelstein) is the writer Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, author of the memoir When Skateboards Will Be Free: A Memoir of a Political Childhood.[1]

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.

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]

Selected works

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 Forever (1979)
  • Lying In Bed (1984)
  • Speed (1990)
  • The Tale Maker (1994)
  • Hitler and the spear of destiny (1996)

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)

Plays

  • Friedman & Son (1963)
  • Bang the Drum Slowly (1992)

Television plays

  • Boswell for the Defence (1983)
  • Boswell's London Journal (1984)

Screenplays

As editor

  • Selected Poems of Vachel Lindsay (1963)
  • The Heart of Boswell: Six Journals in One Volume (1981)

References

  1. ^ a b Los Angeles Times "Mark Harris, author of 'Bang the Drum Slowly,' dies at 84" June 1 2007
  2. ^ Groucho Marx, George Fenneman (2004). You Bet Your Life - The Best Episodes (DVD, Disc 1, episode airdate January 19, 1961). Shout! Factory. 
  3. ^ Arizona RepublicMark Harris obituary

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужен реферат?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Mark Harris — may refer to: Mark Harris (bodybuilder), Welsh professional bodybuilder Mark Harris (author) (1922–2007), American writer of the baseball novel Bang the Drum Slowly Mark Harris (footballer) (born 1963) English association football player Mark… …   Wikipedia

  • Mark Lane (author) — Mark Lane (born February 24, 1927) is an American lawyer who has written many books, including Rush to Judgment, one of two major books published in the immediate wake of the John F. Kennedy assassination that questioned the conclusions of the… …   Wikipedia

  • Mark Phillips (author) — Brain Twister by Mark Phillips (Pyramid Books, 1962) Mark Phillips was the joint pseudonym used by science fiction writers Laurence Mark Janifer and Randall Philip Garrett in the early 1960s. Together they authored several humorous short novels… …   Wikipedia

  • Sam Harris (author) — For other people named Sam Harris, see Sam Harris (disambiguation). Sam Harris Harris pictured c. 2007 Born 1967 (age 43–44) United States Occupation Author, CEO …   Wikipedia

  • Harris, Mark — ▪ 2008 Mark Harris Finkelstein        American novelist born Nov. 19, 1922, Mount Vernon, N.Y. died May 30, 2007, Santa Barbara, Calif. was the author of the baseball tetralogy that chronicled the adventures of Henry Wiggen, a talented pitcher… …   Universalium

  • Mark Penn — (L–R): former President Bill Clinton, White House adviser Mark Penn, David Talbot Born January 15, 1954 (1954 01 15) (age 57) New York City …   Wikipedia

  • Mark Knopfler — Mark Knopfler, July 2006 Background information Birth name Mark Freuder Knopfler Born 12 August 19 …   Wikipedia

  • Mark Jonathan Harris — is an American documentary filmmaker probably best known for his films Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000) and The Long Way Home (1997). He has directed three documentaries which have gone on to win Oscars, across… …   Wikipedia

  • Mark Clark (Black Panther) — Mark Clark Black Panther Born June 28, 1947(1947 06 28) Peoria, Illinois, U.S. Died …   Wikipedia

  • Mark Billingham — Occupation Novelist , Comedian Nationality British Period 1987 – Genres Crime fiction Notable work(s) The Tom Thorne novels …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”