Alabama Authors 2020, RIP

 At least five authors with significant Alabama connections died in 2020. Here's a brief look at each of them. 

William Cobb died on February 17. He was born in Eutaw on October 20, 1937,  and grew up in Demopolis. He wrote a number of novels, short story collections and plays during his 30-year writing career. In the Encyclopedia of Alabama entry on Cobb, Carey W. Heatherly wrote, "In addition to racial strife, many of Cobb's works are noted for their considerably strange and dark comedic value consistent with the Southern Gothic genre of literature. Cobb's writings center particularly on characters who triumph and maintain their dignity in the face of failure. He received the Alabama Writers' Forum's Harper Lee Award in 2007."

Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama

Cobb's first novel was published in 1984. 

Published in 1992, this novel looks at racial tension in a fictional small town in Alabama. 

Ann Bowling Pearson died on June 23. She was born in Montgomery on April 6, 1941. Let me quote from her obituary:

"Ann was educated in what were then Lee County schools, graduating from Auburn High School, in what is now East Samford School. She received her bachelor's degree in English from Auburn University in 1963, her master's from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1964, and her Ph.D. in English Literature (emphasis in Victorian literature) in 1971, from Auburn University. She taught at Georgia Southwestern State University, in Americus, Georgia, then at Auburn University. For a time, Ann was a humanities librarian at Auburn University. For many years, she had a newspaper column in the Auburn Bulletin, "In Random Order." She also wrote movie reviews for the Opelika-Auburn News. Ann published annual children's Christmas stories in the Bulletin and The Villager, all of which involved cats. She published three crime novels, then partnered with Auburn natives Ralph Draughon, Jr. and Delos Hughes to publish "Lost Auburn, a Village Remembered in Period Photographs." That was followed by "No Place Like Home," co-authored by Draughon, Hughes, and Emily Amason Sparrow. Ann also authored the Auburn section of "Lee County and Her Forbears," by Alexander Nunn. Dr. Pearson was active in many community endeavors. She was a founding member of the Lee County Humane Society and supported its efforts until her death."

Ann Pearson [1941-2020]

Source: Opelika-Auburn News 25 June 2020

Pearson also published A Stitch in Time #45 in the series of "Zebra Mystery Puzzlers" from Kensington Publishing. Both appeared in 1979. Her PhD dissertation is entitled "Setting in the Works of Charles Dickens." You can read a detailed article about her preservation work at the "Sunny Slope" cottage in Auburn here. Her preservation efforts included an 1854 plantation home, Noble Hall, which along with its outbuildings and acreage had been purchased by her great-grandfather in the 1940's and was her home. 

On July 8 Brad Watson died at his home in Wyoming. Born in Mississippi on July 24, 1955, he received a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Alabama and later returned for a period as writer in residence. In 1996 while at that latter post he published Last Days of the Dog Men, a collection of stories that took him ten years to write. He subsequently published another collection, Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives in 2010 and two novels, The Heaven of Mercury in 2002 and Miss Jane in 2016. At the time of his death he was teaching at the University of Wyoming. 

Watson at the Alabama Book Festival in Montgomery in 2017

Shirley Ann Grau died August 3 at the age of 91. She was born July 8, 1929, in  New Orleans but grew up in the Montgomery and Selma areas. Over the course of her writing career she published six novels and three collections of stories between 1955 and 1994. In 2006 Selected Stories appeared. Grau won the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Keepers of the House, a work published the previous year and set in rural Alabama. Her other fiction was often set in Louisiana, where she lived most of her life. She was inducted into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame in 2018.

 

Grau's first book and first collection of stories was published in 1955.

This novel appeared in 1971. 

Winston Groom, known to many as the author of Forrest Gump, died on September 17 at age 71. Born in Washington, D.C., on March 23, 1943, he grew up in Mobile and spent much of his adult life in the city. After graduating from the University of Alabama and a tour of duty in Vietnam, Groom worked as a reporter in Washington. 

By 1976 he had begun writing full time, producing three novels from 1978 until 1984. He also wrote his first non-fiction book during this time, Conversations with the Enemy: The Story of PFC Robert Garwood done with Duncan Spencer. In 1985 he returned to Mobile; Forrest Gump was published the following year. He wrote three more novels, Gone the Sun [1988] which is set in Alabama; Such A Pretty, Pretty Girl [1999], a crime thriller set in Los Angeles; and El Paso [2016]. 

Between 1995 and 2018 Groom published 13 works of non-fiction. These titles ranged in subject matter from University of Alabama football to the Civil War and World War II. He was also inducted into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame in 2018. 

Source: McCall Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of South Alabama via the Encyclopedia of Alabama. 

I take a look at book covers and other things Gump in a blog post here. The novel was published in 1986 but did not receive much attention until the Tom Hanks film was released in 1994. 

Groom's second novel was published in 1980. 

Alabama on Some U.S. Postage Stamps (6): Authors

This post is the sixth in a series about postage stamps with Alabama connections. Previous items were

Alabama on U.S. Postage Stamps (1): Some African-Americans

Alabama on U.S. Postage Stamps (2): More African-Americans

Alabama on U.S. Postage Stamps (3): General Topics

Alabama on Some U.S. Postage Stamps (4): More People & Topics

Alabama on Some U.S. Postage Stamps (5): Some More People & Topics

You can see literary stamps from around the world here. Wikipedia has a long list of people on U.S. stamps here. 

More information is below each stamp.

Mary Boykin Chesnut [1823-1886]

A Diary From Dixie. Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, 1823-1886, ed. by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary. New York: D. Appleton and Company 1905

Boykin's diary includes material on her time in Montgomery during the Civil War. This stamp was issued in 1995. 

O. Henry 

[William Sydney Porter 1862-1910]

His famous short story "The Ransom of Red Chief" is set in Summit, Alabama. This stamp was issued in 2012. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940]

His Alabama bonafides are several. He trained in Montgomery during World War I, where he met that local beauty Zelda Sayre. The couple lived in the city during parts of 1931 and 1932 with Zelda working on her only novel, Save Me the Waltz and her husband writing parts of Tender is the Night. Fitzgerald also wrote several short stories set in the state or a close approximation of it. His stamp was issued in 1996.

Margaet Mitchell [1900-1949]

Mitchell was the author of a little tome entitled Gone with the Wind. In 1922 she lived in Birmingham's Southside while working at the Birmingham News. This stamp was issued in 1986.

Ayn Rand [1905-1982]

Rand was a novelist and philosopher. One of her best known works is the novel The Fountainhead, published in 1943. In the 1949 film version Gary Cooper plays architect Howard Roark, who in one scene extols the virtues of Alabama marble to his admirer, a socialite played by Patricia Neal. You can read my blog post about the film here.

I have no idea if the same scene occurs in the book. Perhaps someone who has read it can tell us in the comments. 

This stamp was issued in 1999.

Zora Neale Hurston [1891-1960]

Hurston experienced some success during her life writing novels, short stories, plays and works on folklore. Yet she died in poverty and declining health in a Florida nursing home and was buried in an unmarked grave. In the mid-1970's writer Alice Walker found the grave and wrote about her search for Hurston's final resting place. Since then Hurston's work has returned to prominence.

Hurston herself claimed a Florida birthplace, but most scholars accept it was really in Notasulga, Alabama. Some of her writing has Alabama settings and topics. In 1952 she corresponded with Alabama author William Bradford Huie about their mutual interest in a Florida murder case.

The stamp was issued in 2003.

Tennesse Williams [1911-1983]

Williams, along with Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, is considered one of the great American playwrights of the 20th century. His first full-length play, "Candles to the Sun" was produced in St. Louis in March 1937 and is set in a coal mining region of Alabama. 

His stamp was released in 1995.

John Henrik Clarke [1915-1998]

Clarke was a writer, historian and professor at universities in both the United States and west Africa. He was born in Union Springs, Alabama.

I'm not sure this stamp was ever issued. I found information about a campaign to get such a stamp, but no issue information.

Alabama Authors Babs & Borden Deal

Babs and Borden Deal were a rare couple among writers--two very successful novelists from the 1950's through the 1970's. And since then they have both slipped into obscurity. Let's investigate their Alabama connections.

Babs Hodges was born in Scottsboro on June 23, 1929. After high school graduation she worked in Washington, D.C. as clerk/typist and as typist at Anderson Brass Company in Birmingham. She received a B.A. from the University of Alabama in 1952. Both she and Borden studied under legendary author and professor of creative writing Hudson Strode, although not at the same time. Strode taught at UA for more than 25 years and his students went on to publish over 50 novels and hundreds of short stories. 

She and Borden married in 1952 while both were in Tuscaloosa; Babs was his second wife. They divorced in 1975. The couple had three children, son Brett and daughters Ashley and Shane.

During much of their marriage they lived in Sarasota, Florida, where they circulated in the company of other writers including well-known crime and suspense novelist John D. MacDonald. Rumors of an affair between MacDonald and Babs resulted in MacDonald writing a letter to Borden denying it. [See Hugh Merrill's biography of MacDonald, The Red Hot Typewriter, 2000]

Borden was born in Pontotoc, Mississippi, on October 12, 1922. After graduation from high school he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, where he worked on firefighting crews in the Pacific Northwest. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 until 1945, and then entered the University of Alabama and studied under Strode. He graduated with a B.A. in 1949. He moved to Mexico City College for graduate work; there he met his first wife. They had one child, but soon divorced.

The Deals remained in Tuscaloosa for a couple of years after the marriage and spent their time writing. Future author Wayne Greenhaw often watched the children so the pair could work. By 1954 the Deals were living in Scottsboro. While there Borden received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1957 and a residency at the MacDowell Colony for artists in New Hampshire in 1964. That same year the family moved to Sarasota. By that time Borden had published eight novels and Babs her first two. 

Deal published over 20 novels and around 100 stories during his life. Some were published under pseudonyms. After 1970 he also wrote a series of erotic novels published anonymously, a practice many authors have used to supply quick funds. Two of his novels appeared posthumously, They Are All Strangers (1985) and The Platinum Man (1989). Babs published twelve novels.

Borden died of a heart attack in Sarasota on January 22, 1985. Babs, who lived at the time in Gulf Shores, died in a Montgomery hospital on February 20, 2004.

I never met Borden or any of the children, but I did meet Babs in the late 1970's. She was living in Auburn while her daughters were in school there. She and Dianne were friends when I met my future wife, who hadd met Babs through daughter Ashley. I remember Babs as a funny, earthy lady. 

Borden has entries in Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia of Alabama; Babs has neither. In his 2001 book Vanishing Florida, David T. Warner includes a memoir of Borden whom he knew in Sarasota. Babs does have an entry in the Alabama Literary Map and like Borden appears in various reference books covering Southern and/or American authors. Borden's papers are in the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University. That collection includes sculptures of Babs and Borden by Sara Mayfield, a fellow Alabama writer. 

Alabama has had at least two other couples who were both widely published authors, C. Terry Cline and Judith Richards and the Covingtons, Dennis and Vicki. 

Further comments follow many of the images below. 

This novel, Babs' fifth, first appeared in 1968. The following year she received the Alabama Author Award from the state library association for the book. Dianne has told me Babs once informed her that the book was loosely based on real Tuscaloosa events.

On December 3, 1979, NBC broadcast a TV movie adaptation of that novel under a new title. The film featured an all-female cast that included Paula Prentiss, Tina Louise, Loretta Swit, Stella Stevens, Shelley Fabares and Sondra Locke. 

A TV-movie tie-in reprint of the novel appeared in 1979.

Her first novel appeared in 1959.

Babs' second novel, originally published in 1961, was reprinted by the University of Alabama Press in 1990. That is the most recent reprint of any of her works. In its review of the reprint, Library Journal declared, "This is a southern writer who can be appreciated by all." (15 September 1990, p. 105)

This thriller was published in 1973.

She is buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Scottsboro.

Source: Find-A-Grave

Her 1969 country music novel is dedicated to friend, fellow writer and onetime baby sitter Wayne Greenhaw, who has left a remembrance of the Deals in his essay in The Remembered Gate: Memoirs by Alabama Writers. The book was "really about Hank Williams" she told Clarke Stallworth in the article discussed below. 

In this 1962 novel, Deal's characters all work at night. 

This novel appeared in 1975.

Other novels include The Grail (1964), Fancy's Knell (1966), Summer Games (1972), The Reason for Roses (1974) and Goodnight Ladies (1978). The Grail was a football novel in which the star quarterback falls in love with the coach's wife. The book is based on the legends of King Arthur; for background on football she consulted Bear Bryant and Gene Stallings. 

This article by Clarke Stallworth appeared in the Birmingham News 26 March 1982. In it she laments the "bestseller" mentality of publishers and notes that after 25 years her publisher Doubleday doesn't "want me any more." She mentions the completed manuscript for a thirteenth novel. Perhaps it is among her papers, also at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.  

Her published short fiction includes:

DEAL, BABS H(odges) (1929-2004) (chron.)
• * A Chocolate Cake, (vi) Redbook Jul 1964
• * The Crystal Mouse, (sl) Ladies’ Home Journal Feb 1973
• * High, Lonesome World, (ss) Cosmopolitan Jun 1963
• * The House Guest, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jul 1967
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (UK) Sep 1967
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1968 (var.2)
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #10 1982
• * Make My Death Bed, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Apr 1960
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1960 (var.1)
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #22 1986
• * Pride, (vi) Redbook May 1964
• * To Ride an Elephant, (vi) Redbook Aug 1965
• * The Twilight Corner, (ss) McCall’s Feb 1961
• * With Love from Joe, (ss) Redbook Jan 1964

Source: FictionMags Index

On June 27, 1961, an adaptation of her story "Make My Death Bed" appeared on the Alfred Hitchcock series. The thirty-minute program was broadcast in the show's sixth season. As of this writing a video of the episode is available here. 

This 1976 novel was adapted as a two-part movie for television and broadcast in 1988. 

Borden's second novel was published in 1957 and explores the coming of the Tennessee Valley Authority to north Alabama. This book and one by fellow Alabama author William Bradford Huie served as the basis for the 1960 film Wild River  starring Lee Remick and Montgomery Clift. 

This anthology published in 1976 contains Deal's story "A Try for the Big Prize" that first appeared in Hitchcock's magazine in May 1961.

This 1959 novel about southern hill country music served as the basis of the Broadway musical A Joyful Noise in 1966.

This novel appeared in 1965.

This novel was published in 1974. 

The Advocate (1968) is the middle novel of a "political trilogy" that also included The Loser (1964) and The Winner (1973). 

As he had done with the early novel Dunbar's Cove and the TVA, this 1970 book explored the effects of massive change on the South. In addition to that theme in his novels, Deal also wrote about basic human characteristics such as ambition, lust, greed, infidelity and a young man's coming of age.

This photograph on the back cover of Interstate was taken by fellow author John D. MacDonald. 

The first part of this Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color episode was  broadcast on March 8, 1964, and the second part a week later. The film was based on a story by Borden, probably "Watermelon Moon" first published in Argosy (UK) in February 1963.

Borden's published short stories include:

DEAL, BORDEN; [born Loysé Youth Deal] (1922-1985); (about) (chron.)

• * Beauregard Bugleboy III, (ss) Argosy (UK) Sep 1965
• * The Big Bajoor, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jun 1962
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #13 1983
• * A Bottle of Wine, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Dec 1956
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspense Magazine Mar 1957
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #5 1979
• * The Cattywampus, (ss) Argosy Jan 1963
  • Argosy (UK) Jul 1963
• * The Christmas Hunt, (ss) The Saturday Evening Post Dec 3 1960
  • The Saturday Evening Post Dec 1982
• * Cornered, (ss) Argosy Dec 1951
• * The Day the Lion Came to Town, (ss) McCall’s May 1962
• * Death of a Lawman, (ss) Verdict Jan 1957
• * Death on the Avenida, (vi) Collier’s Sep 16 1955
• * Dunbar’s Cove, (n.) Scribner’s 1957
  • Ladies’ Home Journal Nov 1957
• * Flesh-Eaters, (ss) Argosy (UK) Jul 1960
• * The Followers, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Aug 1958
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1959 (var.4)
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #6 1980
• * The Frightened Ones, (ss) Adventure Apr 1956
• * Get-Away, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Nov 1961
• * The Gothic Room, (ss) The Saint Magazine Sep 1967
• * Harmony Valley, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jul 1966
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1967 (var.3)
• * Holiday for an Unhappy Man, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jun 1959
  • Argosy (UK) Sep 1961
• * Hunters, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jan 1959
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1959 (var.1)
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #16 1983
• * A Kiss for Choice, (ss) 1959
  • Argosy (UK) Mar 1960
• * A Long Way to Go, (n.) 1965
  • Woman’s Journal May, Jun 1966
• * Make Your Pitch, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Apr 1962
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1962 (var.4)
• * A Mule Named Tony, (ss) Argosy Feb 1964
• * Murder by Remote Control, (nv) Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine Nov 1958
• * My Brother’s Killer, (??) Collier’s Jul 11 1953
• * My Summer Vacation, (ss) Rogue Jul 1961
• * A Night for Hounds, (ss) Argosy Feb 1951
  • Trap of Gold and Other Great Adventure Stories from Argosy 1952
• * One Last Bull, (ss) Adventure May 1951
• * The Patternmaker, (ss) Rogue Jul 1963
• * The Saint, (ss) Rogue Aug 1964
• * The Secret Box, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Feb 1960
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1960 (var.2), Fll 1960 (var.3)
• * Small-Town Cop, (ss) Mercury Mystery Magazine Aug 1958
  • Mercury Mystery Magazine (UK) May 1963
• * Snipe Hunt, (ss) Argosy (UK) Feb 1964
• * The Steeper Cliffs, (ss) Pocket Book Weekly Nov 24 1956
• * The Strange Gig, (ss) Playboy Nov 1963
• * “The Tailor-Made Wife”, (ss) Redbook Feb 1958
• * Talk Your Way Out of Death, (ss) This Week Mar 11 1956
  • The Creasey Mystery Magazine Mar 1957
• * The Taste of Melon, (ss) The Saturday Evening Post Aug 25 1962
  • The Saturday Evening Post Sep 1985
• * A Time for Knowing, (ss) Prairie Schooner Fll 1950
• * Tough Cop, (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jun 1963
  • Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (UK) Oct 1963
  • Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (Australia) Dec 1963
• * A Try for the Big Prize, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine May 1961
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #1 1976
• * Watermelon Moon, (ss) Argosy (UK) Feb 1963
• * A Woman’s Choice, (ss) Jack London’s Adventure Magazine Oct 1958
• * You Understand?, (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Dec 1979
• * “Argonotes”, uncredited, (bg) Argosy Feb 1951

Source: FictionMags Index