Larry Heinemann
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Larry Heinemann | |
---|---|
Born | Larry Curtis Heinemann January 18, 1944 memoirist |
Period | 1977–2019 |
Genre | War |
Subject | Vietnam War |
Notable awards | National Book Award 1987 |
Larry Curtis Heinemann (January 18, 1944 – December 11, 2019) was an American novelist born and raised in Chicago. His published work – three novels and a memoir – is primarily concerned with the Vietnam War.
Life
Heinemann served a combat tour as a conscripted draftee in the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1968 with the 25th Infantry Division, and described himself as the most ordinary of soldiers.
He received a B.A. from Columbia College, Chicago in 1971, taught creative writing there for fifteen years, and meanwhile wrote his own first and second novels. In 1986 he resigned over a furious argument about nepotism and academic freedom.[1] Paco's Story was published later that year.
Afterward Heinemann received literature fellowships from the
Writer
Heinemann's prose style is blunt and straightforward, reflecting his working-class background.[1] He drew most directly on his Vietnam experience in his first novel Close Quarters which was published in 1977.
His second and critically most acclaimed novel is Paco's Story, which won the 1987 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction[3] in a major surprise that has remained controversial, as Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved was widely expected to win.[4][5][6][7] Other critics and essayists thought the award appropriate and well deserved.[citation needed] At the time, Heinemann's only comment on the controversy was that the check for $10,000 was already cashed and the Louise Nevelson sculpture was not likely to be returned.
Paco's Story relates the postwar experiences of its
His third novel, Cooler by the Lake (1992), is a comic story about Chicago. A petty thief gets into awful trouble when he attempts to return to its owner a wallet with eight $100 bills in it. Thematically lighter than his first novels, it was less positively received.
Heinemann's military experiences are documented in his book, Black Virgin Mountain (2005), a memoir. It chronicles his several returns to Vietnam and his personal and political views concerning the country and the war. He often referred to his two war novels and the memoir as an accidental trilogy.
Heinemann's short stories and non-fiction have appeared in
His work has been translated into Dutch, German, French, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
References
- ^ Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture2.1 (Winter 2003). Logosonline. Retrieved 2009-10-09.
- ^ "Writer Larry Heinemann dies in Bryan at 75". December 12, 2019.
- ^
"National Book Awards – 1987". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-26.
(With essays by Patricia Smith and Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) - ^
"An Upset at the Book Awards", Edwin McDowell, The New York Times, November 10, 1987, page C13.
• "In a stunning literary upset ..." - ^
"Book Awards Are Pondered", Edwin McDowell, The New York Times, November 12, 1987, page C27.
• "Although the literary and publishing communities have had two days to recover ... they continue to express astonishment that the novel by Larry Heinemann beat the widely celebrated and praised novels by Toni Morrison and Philip Roth.
"'Everybody and their brother thought Toni Morrison was going to win it,' said Gerald Howard, executive editor of Penguin, which published the paperback edition of Paco's Story just this week." - ^
"Did 'Paco's Story' Deserve Its Award?", Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times, November 16, 1987, page C15.
• "What happened? ... Members of the literary community had widely regarded Toni Morrison's novel Beloved as a virtual shoo-in for the prize (with The Counterlife by Philip Roth also a strong contender) and the announcement last Monday ... was greeted with expressions of surprise and astonishment." - ^ Menand, Louis. "All That Glitters: Literature’s global economy" (review of The Economy of Prestige by James English), The New Yorker, December 26, 2005/January 2, 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-11.
External links
- 1997 interview with Larry Heinemann from The Atlantic Monthly
- 2003 interview with Larry Heinemann from Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture
- [1] Mobility and Transformation: Engaging the Enemy in Larry Heinemann's Paco's Story (academic paper on gender and enmity in Paco's Story)