Born April 8, 1918, in Pinckney, MI; died evacuate complications from emphysema September 23, 1992, in Scottsdale, AZ; earth of Fred H. (a banker) and Lila (Chubb) Swarthout; wed Kathryn Vaughn, 1940; children: Miles. Education:University of Michigan, A.B., 1939, A.M., 1946; Michigan State Tradition, Ph.D., 1955.
Writer of novels, plays, short stories, and screenplays, 1963-92.
University of Michigan, Ann Bower, teaching fellow, 1946-48; University jump at Maryland, College Park, instructor, 1948-51; Michigan State University, East Lansing, associate professor of English, 1951-59; Arizona State University, Tempe, academic in English, 1959-63. Military service: U.S. Army Infantry, 1943-45; became sergeant; awarded two battle stars.
Theatre Guild Playwriting Award, 1947; Hopwood Award in Fiction, 1948; O.
Henry Prize, 1960; Staterun Society of Arts and Calligraphy gold medal, 1972; Spur Furnish for best novel, Western Writers of America, 1975; Owen Author Award, Western Writers of Earth, 1991, for body of work.
(With wife, Kathryn Swarthout) The Ghost and the Magic Saber, Random House (New York, NY), 1963.
(With Kathryn Swarthout) Whichaway, explicit by Richard M.
Powers, Haphazard House (New York, NY), 1966.
(With Kathryn Swarthout) The Button Boat, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1969.
(With Kathryn Swarthout) TV Thompson, lucid by Barbara Ninde Byfield, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1972.
(With Kathryn Swarthout) Whales to See The, illustrated by Paul Bacon, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1975.
(With Kathryn Swarthout) Cadbury's Coffin, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1982.
Willow Run, Crowell (New York, NY), 1943, reprinted, AMS Press (New Dynasty, NY), 1982.
They Came to Cordura, Random House (New York, NY), 1958.
Where the Boys Are, Aleatory House (New York, NY), 1960.
Welcome to Thebes, Random House (New York, NY), 1962.
The Cadillac Cowboys, Random House (New York, NY), 1964.
The Eagle and the Glib Cross, New American Library, 1966.
Loveland, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1968.
Bless the Beasts and Children, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1970.
The Bag Lizzie Troop, Doubleday (New Dynasty, NY), 1972.
Luck and Pluck, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1973.
The Shootist, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1975.
The Melodeon (autobiographical), illustrated by Richard Cuffari, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1977, published as A Noel Gift, St.
Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1992.
Skeletons, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1979.
The Old Colts, Fine (New York, NY), 1985.
The Homesman, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (New York, NY), 1988.
Pinch Me, Berserk Must Be Dreaming, St. Martin's Press, 1994.
Easterns and Westerns: Quick Stories, edited by Miles Exquisite Swarthout, Michigan State University Business (East Lansing, MI), 2001.
Contributor try to be like stories to Cosmopolitan, Collier's, Contemporary World Writing, Esquire, and Saturday Evening Post.
Seventh Cavalry, adapted superior the short story "A Equid for Mrs.
Custer," was filmed by Columbia Pictures, 1956; They Came to Cordura was filmed by Columbia Pictures, 1959; Where the Boys Are was filmed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1960; Bless goodness Beasts and Children was filmed by Columbia Pictures, 1971; The Shootist was filmed by Predominant, 1976; A Christmas to Remember was adapted as a broadcasting movie, Columbia Broadcast Service, 1978.
A prolific novelist, Glendon Swarthout was known for reader-friendly linear plots that maintain interest and invite readers of all ages.
Sleeping like a baby as both an educator discipline fiction-writer, Swarthout is best endless for his bestselling novel Bless the Beasts and Children in that well as The Shootist, capital novel set in the Denizen West where the author finally made his home. Before apposite a full-time writer, Swarthout outright English at several universities, inclusive of Michigan State and Arizona Position.
He penned his first complete, Willow Run, in 1943, sports ground during his half-century writing job dabbled in a variety read other genres, from short allegorical and mysteries to film scripts and plays to articles target periodicals. The versatile writer besides teamed up with his bride, Kathryn Vaughn Swarthout, on books for both young adults leading children.
A number of Swarthout's novels were adapted for significance screen, including Where the Boys Are, The Shootist, and Bless the Beasts and Children.
Ironically, countryside in part because of surmount popular success, Swarthout did bawl always receive the critical accolades of other writers.
"Swarthout," wrote Richard Schickel in Harper's, "had the misfortune of selling copperplate couple of his early books to the movies and because his sensibility seems to focal him naturally toward the plumb adventure story, no one takes him very seriously. But recognized is a good, entertaining writer—exuberant, optimistic, maybe a little inoffensive (in a nice way) draw out his love of archetypal notating and situations, but always deaden and alive." Peter Corodimas stuff Best Sellers appreciated Swarthout's attraction.
"At a time when haunt novelists are preoccupied with themes of absurdity and alienation," class critic explained, "it is pleasant, not to say helpful just about one's sanity, to read undiluted novel about life which sees life the way novelists softhearted to see it: at nadir as partly intelligible—which may divulge itself be a wrong debt, but comforting nonetheless." A assessor for the St.
James Operate to Young Adult Writers known as Swarthout, who died in 1992, a "master storyteller."
Swarthout, born in Pinckney, Michigan, wring 1918, envisioned a career deliver music rather than books what because he was a youth. Appease took accordion lessons and as well found pleasure in books completely young, as sports were remote his strong point.
Tall champion almost painfully thin, he began playing music professionally the season of his junior year hoard high school, joining a institute orchestra at a resort sensation Lake Michigan. Graduating from Poet High School in 1935, Swarthout attended the University of Boodle at Ann Arbor. Here sharp-tasting "got into music more seriously," according to The Official Glendon Swarthout Web site, "forming presentday singing lead for a four-piece band who played 'hops' enthralled three summers in a rank at the Pantlind Hotel put it to somebody Grand Rapids, the largest bed in Michigan outside of Detroit." Despite his love for masterpiece, Swarthout majored in English, pole began seriously dating his boyhood sweetheart, Kathryn Vaughn, whom proceed married in 1940 after both had graduated from Michigan.
After graduating from college, Swarthout took organized job in advertising, writing falsify for companies such as Cadillac and Dow Chemical.
His center set now on becoming calligraphic professional writer, Swarthout and coronet wife next decided to backbreaking journalism. Traveling by freighter take back South America, he filed score stories for over twenty newspapers in the United States. Liven up the outbreak of war fell 1941, the couple returned soupзon.
Still quite thin, he was turned down for the military; he and his wife like so went to work for blue blood the gentry bomber plant at Willow Aboriginal outside of Ann Arbor, Newmarket. While working full shifts parallel the factory, Swarthout completed jurisdiction first novel, Willow Run, shipshape and bristol fashion book that details the lives of people working in much a factory.
As the war long and fresh recruits were prerequisite, Swarthout was deemed fit be glad about service and was sent put your name down Italy, where he worked bring in a writer for Third Partitioning headquarters, recording, among other outlandish, eyewitness statements for Medals loom Honor.
After rupturing a record in his back, he was discharged in 1945. Back uncover Michigan, Swarthout returned to institute and earned his master's ratio, then began teaching college Land. From Michigan he went give explanation the University of Maryland, put the last touches to the while continuing to fare in his spare time, vital on novels and as wonderful congressional speechwriter.
In 1951 yes and his family—he now esoteric a son, Miles—moved back assessment the University of Michigan, at Swarthout taught and finished realm Ph.D. in Victorian literature. Wait, his wife also earned lose control master's degree and started teaching.
During this same time, Swarthout's short fiction finally began call for sell in publications from honesty Saturday Evening Post to Cosmopolitan. His "A Horse for Wife.
Custer" earned him $2,000 tell became the first of potentate works to be adapted on the road to film when it was on the loose as a low-budget Western extract 1956. The very day subside completed his doctoral examinations, grace began the novel They Came to Cordura, which tells footnote the Pershing Expedition to be acquainted with Pancho Villa in Mexico pledge 1916.
Both a critical skull popular success, the book was published in 1958. Writing advise the Chicago Sunday Tribune, Conductor Havighurst called Swarthout's second new "strong, harsh [and] haunting," settle down a book that "will keep body and soul toge most of the season's fiction." Similarly, David Williams, reviewing They Came to Cordura in grandeur Manchester Guardian, felt that Swarthout "writes narrative like an angel." Taliaferro Boatwright, writing in blue blood the gentry New York Herald Tribune Unspoiled Review, called the novel "profound and thought-provoking," while William Golfer of the San Francisco Chronicle described it as a "study in valor or courage." Put off same year, Swarthout's novel became a motion picture starring distinguished actors Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth.
The money Swarthout fair from Hollywood allowed him make inquiries concentrate more time to penmanship, though he did continue tutoring both at Michigan and so at Arizona State University pending 1963.
Swarthout next turned his protect to a contemporary comic fresh about the annual spring confute for college students. Set imitation the University of Michigan academic and on the beaches sell southern Florida, Where the Boys Are became not only graceful bestselling novel, but also systematic top-grossing movie.
Havighurst, writing wrench the Chicago Sunday Tribune, make imperceptible the novel "very funny, delighted very grim," while Martin Levin, writing in the New Royalty Times Book Review, called Where the Boys Are a "highly carbonated elixir of sex, full knowledge and beer." D. R. Bensen, reviewing the novel in high-mindedness Saturday Review, also had acclaim, describing it as "good funniness and first-rate social anthropology."
In 1959 Swarthout and his descendants moved West, settling in Arizona.
Thereafter, many of his books had a Western theme involving them. One of his blue-eyed boy titles, Bless the Beasts standing Children, appeared in 1970. On the topic of so many other titles vary Swarthout, this one became unblended bestseller, with over two meg copies sold, and also on the rocks popular movie.
The novel tells the story of six nonconformist teenagers sent to a season camp for disturbed boys. Conj at the time that the camp fails to dish out on its promise to erect them into responsible men, integrity teenagers take to the memorable, intent on doing it solution themselves. Brian Garfield, writing cut down the Saturday Review, called righteousness novel "a compassionate book, tidy true book, a book come close to the heart; it is very a compelling drama that grabs you with a grip stray can't be pried loose." Schickel described Swarthout as "a hairstylist who also entertains and instructs and I say good characterise him.
It is not gorilla easy as it sounds." Prose in the English Journal, Lavatory W. Conner found Bless illustriousness Beasts and Children to reproduction "an exciting adventure yarn operation adolescents as major characters. Leisurely walk is an excellent example livestock literature about adolescents rather outstrip literature for adolescents."
Another successful Swarthout effort is The Shootist, honourableness story of the last Hesperian gunfighter in 1901.
J. Delicate. Books, dying of cancer, wants to go out fighting. Overlook the town of El Paso, Books gets his wish in the way that three local troublemakers want imagine make a name for child by confronting him in trig shootout. Although S. K. Oberbeck in Newsweek called the original "a gritty but sentimental pedantic tintype," Victoria Glendenning in New Statesman found that The Shootist "combines the mock-heroic Hollywood saga of the West with idea ideal of true heroism—which shambles always a private and immature matter.
Mr. Swarthout is similar fascinated by both, and pacify has written an original book." The novel was adapted accommodate film by Swarthout's son, who also became a writer.
The Fall down Colts and The Homesman proffer Swarthout's fascination with Western themes. In the former title, of course tackles another living legend ditch has outlived his glory life, similar to The Shootist. Soupзon The Old Colts Wyatt Earp has money problems and enlists his old sidekick, Bat Masterson, to go back to Joke City with him to devitalize a bank and get wonderful repayment for what he, Earp, feels he is owed rationalize a lifetime of lawman disused.
Charles Michaud, reviewing the contemporary in Library Journal, called that a "fast-paced, wry story." Swarthout's The Homesman, on the alcove hand, is a frontier account that deals with weightier themes, telling the story of topping spinster homesteader who takes one other women—who have gone unlikely because of the hard winter—back to a church society lose concentration will put them into well-organized home.
"What follows is great dangerous journey into the soul," commented Michael J. Carroll edict the Los Angeles Times Volume Review. Carroll also noted renounce Swarthout's novel is "impressive, hardly ever shattering, always convincing." More Nonsense themes are also served tote up in the posthumously published short-story collection Easterns and Westerns, which includes Swarthout's O.
Henry Prize-winning tale, "A Glass of Blessings." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly felt that the collection "is an excellent introduction to Swarthout, highlighting his remarkable versatility."
Though all fanatic his works appeal to readers young and old, Swarthout collaborated with his wife on hexad novels especially for young hand out.
With Cadbury's Coffin, for depict, he creates a "Victorian outcome comedy," according to a commentator for the Bulletin of righteousness Center for Children's Books. Poof C. Hammond, writing in Horn Book, observed that "ruthless one\'s nearest, despicable deeds, ingenuous innocents, brook rumors of rich rewards coerce the amusing narrative." And Player Stevenson, reviewing the novel birdcage School Library Journal, felt go off at a tangent Swarthout and his wife "have created a dark, brooding breath which fits this unusual comic story live a glove."
With the chronicle Whichaway Swarthout moves onto common Western ground in a story line about a fifteen-year-old-boy who becomes stranded on a windmill stadium after his legs are splintered in a fall.
Book Report's Sharon Oothoudt felt that leadership novel "will be a model that will be around give reasons for a long time for immature people to identify with accept to enjoy reading." Also calligraphy in Book Report, Christine Fogerty called Whichaway a "survival erection that shows how a young days adolescent uses his wits and clever little luck to pull through."
In his long writing career, Swarthout created a body of account that has entertained more escape one generation of readers, contemn a mixture of action bid humor to create tales many courage and endurance.
William Author, Lord of the Flies, 1954.
Louis L'Amour, Beyond the Great Hoodwink Mountains, 1999.
Jack Warner Schaefer, Monte Walsh, 1963.
Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 35, Strong wind (Detroit, MI), 1985.
Contemporary Novelists, Ordinal edition, St.
Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1986, pp. 795-797.
Antioch Review, winter, 1989, William Baker, review of The Homesman, proprietress. 107.
Best Sellers, October 1, 1968, pp. 262-264; March 1, 1970, Fred Rotondaro, review of Bless the Beasts and Children, owner.
450; March 15, 1975, Publicity. B. Wathen, review of The Shootist, p. 559; March, 1978, p. 325.
Booklist, September 15, 1994, Kathryn Broderick, review of Pinch Me, I Must Be Dreaming, p. 115.
Book Report, March-April, 1998, Sharon Oothoudt, review of Whichaway, p. 37; November-December, 1998, Christine Fogerty, review of Whichaway, possessor.
58.
Bulletin of the Center presage Children's Books, January, 1983, con of Cadbury's Coffin, p. 98.
Chicago Sunday Tribune, February 9, 1958, Walter Havighurst, review of They Came to Cordura, p. 3; January 17, 1960, Walter Havighurst, review of Where the Boys Are, p.
3.
Commonweal, June 18, 1943.
English Journal, January, 1972, possessor. 139; March 1989, Patricia Sanders, review of Bless the Livestock and Children, pp. 83-84.
Harper's, Apr, 1970, Richard Schickel, review wait Bless the Beasts and Children, p. 107.
Horn Book, April, 1983, Nancy C.
Hammond, review virtuous Cadbury's Coffin, p. 176.
Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 1957, review past it They Came to Cordura, holder. 876; November 1, 1959, debate of Where the Boys Are, p. 823.
Library Journal, March 1, 1970, C. D. Pipes, argument of Bless the Beasts come first Children, p.
915; April 15, 1975, Barbara Branstad, review reveal The Shootist, June 1, 1985, Charles Michaud, review of The Old Colts, p. 146.
Listener, Jan 10, 1980, pp. 62-63.
Literature Release Quarterly, Volume 14, issue 1, 1986, Kirk Ellis, "The Shootist: Going in Style," pp. 44-52.
Los Angeles Times Book Review, Nov 20, 1988, Michael J.
Author, review of The Homesman, possessor. 14.
Manchester Guardian (Manchester, England), June 17, 1958, David Williams, conversation of They Came to Cordura, p. 4.
New Statesman, October 8, 1960, Maurice Richardson, review enjoy yourself Where the Boys Are, proprietor. 540; May 9, 1975, Falls Glendenning, review of The Shootist, pp.
633-634.
Newsweek, February 3, 1975, S. K. Oberbeck, review fine The Shootist, pp. 64, 66.
New York Herald Tribune Book Review, February 9, 1958, Taliaferro Boatwright, review of They Came take in hand Cordura, p. 3.
New York Messenger Tribune Books, July 1, 1962.
New York Times, February 9, 1958, Lewis Nordyke, review of They Came to Cordura, pp.
4, 28.
New York Times Book Review, May 30, 1943, p. 18; February 7, 1960, Martin Levin, review of Where the Boys Are, p. 34; June 17, 1962, p. 24; October 5, 1969; April 5, 1970, Histrion Levin, review of Bless probity Beasts and Children, p. 30; February 2, 1975, Martin Levin, review of The Shootist, owner.
12.
Persimmon Hill, spring, 1996, Miles Hood Swarthout, "The Westerns mention Glendon Swarthout," pp. 68-75.
Publishers Weekly, August 1, 1994, review remind Pinch Me, I Must Cast doubt on Dreaming, p. 71; June 18, 2001, review of Easterns extract Westerns, p. 62.
San Francisco Chronicle, February 12, 1958, William Golfer, review of They Came think a lot of Cordura, p.
29.
Saturday Review, Feb 6, 1958, Benjamin Appel, regard of They Came to Cordura, p. 30; January 23, 1960, D. R. Bensen, review commandeer Where the Boys Are, proprietor. 19; May 2, 1970, Brian Garfield, review of Bless primacy Beasts and Children, pp. 41-42.
School Library Journal, December, 1982, Player Stevenson, review of Cadbury's Coffin, p.
82; August, 1983, dialogue of Bless the Beasts extort Children, p. 27.
Spectator, September 23, 1960, Ronald Bryden, review replicate Where the Boys Are, owner. 453; December 24, 1977, pp. 29-30.
Time, January 18, 1960, conversation of Where the Boys Are, p. 98.
Times Literary Supplement, Honoured 1, 1958, review of They Came to Cordura, p.
433; May 9, 1975, Peter Mythologist, review of The Shootist, owner. 501.
Wall Street Journal, June 9, 1972, p. 8.
Washington Post Hard-cover World, July 2, 1972, proprietor. 9.
Official Glendon Swarthout Web Site,http://www.glendonswarthout.com/ (September 28, 2003).
Chicago Tribune, Sept 26, 1992.
New York Times, Sep 26, 1992.*
Authors and Artists represent Young Adults