Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Pioneer and Childhood Hero by M. G. Turner

When I was eight years old I had the privilege of meeting one of the greats—in fact the greatest cinema special effects pioneer of the 20th Century. That man’s name was Ray Harryhausen, and to movie fans worldwide he represents the start of a great age in filmmaking, where the previously unthinkable could be projected on screen, using two primary techniques, known as Stop-Motion Animation, and Dynamation, which each pushed the boundaries of what had previously been possible in the fantasy, adventure, and sci-fi realms. But to me, Ray Harryhausen, for all his cinematic splendor and cultural renown, represented something else: magic. For me, this took the form of an idea, that art was not only impressive and important, that it could also be fun.

I can’t recall which Harryhausen movie I saw first, but it was probably Jason and the Argonauts, which remains my favorite of his films, though Mysterious Island is a close second. In those days—the early 2000s—I used to watch films on our bulbous, analog TV set. This included VHS tapes and eventually DVDs that we rented from our neighborhood video store and some of the first films I watched were Harryhausen’s. Something I used to do, in lieu of being in a real theater, was use chairs, pillows, and then a large bed-sheet to create a kind of makeshift fort, inside of which I could watch films. This had a curious cave-like effect and helped pull my focus to the images on screen, which were dazzling, especially to my young, uncritical mind. This was long before IMAX, and 48 frames per second, and on the fly CGI; this was an only child discovering one of his first artistic heroes, a man I would go on to meet, whom I would initially correspond with over a series of letters, first sent in the fall of 2003.

At that time I was starting second grade, and for my first two years in school had faced a great deal of bullying and harassment from other kids. I was always shy and quiet, preferring to read Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings instead of running wild with my classmates on the playground. As many people are subjects of bullying and intimidation early in their school years, I don’t suggest I was unique in this, but do think it intensified my wish to escape into other worlds, to lose myself in some grand swashbuckling action. I was looking for something to fill the void, and though the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the Star Wars space opera did some of the work, it was really Harryhausen who made me feel complete, Harryhausen who opened my mind and showed me that movies could be both entertaining and meaningful. In short, that they could be art.

With my mother herself being a visual artist, I already knew that art was an important element of one’s emotional and intellectual life, but I didn’t know it could also be fun. Seeing Harryhausen’s creatures come to life not only felt like the most special sort of magic trick, but an experience akin to walking through the halls of a wondrous and thought-provoking museum, which in those difficult days of 1st Grade helped me see that there was something outside of the difficult, tedious, and at times Kafkaesque experience of New York public school with its inane standardized tests, its lack of discipline, and myriad bureaucratic cruelties.

Thus I escaped into Harryhausen’s movies, watching them on the weekends, and sometimes on school nights. I even watched all the Sinbad films in succession when recovering from a traumatic ear operation. Because I was so moved by them, and because they meant so much to me, and because they had granted me my first glimpse into seeing film as an art-form, and not just a mode of entertainment, I decided to write him a letter.

I was luckier than most kids in this endeavor, because my father was and still is an influential book editor and was able to obtain Harryhausen’s address through his publishing house. In the letters, which I wrote the summer before first grade began, I told him how much I liked his films, that I wanted to be an animator when I grew up, and even included some drawings depicting his monsters. I simply wanted to connect with the man who’d brought wonder into my life, to convey to him, in no uncertain terms, my appreciation, childlike as it might have been. Of course, in our overly critical culture some might look back and say the Harryhausen icons such as the skeletons in Jason, or his Emir from 20,000,000 Miles to Earth, or any of the other colossal creatures which graced his films, didn’t look real per se, it didn’t matter and still doesn’t. There is a suspension of disbelief necessary for appreciating a Harryhausen film, a suspension that modern audiences have become poorly practiced at, but remains important to one’s overall aesthetic health. For a child it was easy to deploy this ability, and to derive enjoyment from the visions he conjured, and so I felt a letter was the best way to express my, well, gratitude.

We waited a month or two, and in that time worried that the letter might have gone astray or hadn’t reached him, until finally from England, where the great man lived, a reply came, a photo of which is depicted below. I remember holding the letter in my hands in disbelief, a similar disbelief to the kind I felt when I watched his movies: utter amazement, combined with sheer joy. Reading the letter over and over, I felt I had finally made contact with someone who understood me, and who, in a sense, had freed me from the fear and worry that pervaded so much of my existence. We exchanged another letter or two over the course of the next few months, and after a time our correspondence faltered.

But it did not falter for long, as roughly a year later, my parents received word that a special “Harryhausen Night” was being held at Lincoln Center. Our eventual meeting occurred on a rainy evening in the autumn of 2004, after I had turned eight years old. My mother had discovered that for the release of his heavily illustrated book Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life (co-authored with Tony Dalton, Watson-Guptill, 2004), the man himself would be speaking and signing copies at Lincoln Center. And like a great New Yorker who knows what she wants and how to get it, she took me to meet him, and managed to get us to the front of the line.

There he was: a handsome, distinguished older gentleman with fraying white hair and a round, inviting face, who in some ways reminded me of my own grandfather, a civil engineer who had his own meticulous pursuits. I remember being nervous but Harryhausen being welcoming in a way that went beyond simple politeness; he seemed genuinely touched that we’d come out to see his classic films, and touched by the nervousness we both showed. And luckily Ray and I were not complete strangers! My mother and I were sure to remind Ray—he was now Ray in my mind—that we’d had a brief correspondence. To this, he said he remembered us and that he was happy to finally meet me in person. It didn’t matter if this was true or not—for all I know he could have received hundreds of fan letters a year from kids like me—but this was all I needed to feel like I had been seen and heard and accepted.

While we stood there, with a legion of people behind us, each waiting anxiously for their own moment with him, I repeated how much I loved Jason and the Argonauts, and The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, and him smiling and saying how he appreciated my interest. He was also extremely patient as my mother attempted to take a photo of us. After several failed tries—in the picture below you can see in my eyes the fear that this moment would be lost—she managed to snap a few good ones. Ray smiled at us and signed our book and the line continued moving.

There was a screening happening in tandem with the in-person event, and soon we found our seats in the Walter Reade Cinema at Lincoln Center, settling in for a night of his classic films. Previously I had only been to the theater to see The Lord of the Rings, so this was a special night for me—perhaps one of the most special nights of my young life, and something I consider to be a personal success, though it occurred when age was still in single digits. I was having an experience that most people had not had since the sixties and seventies when his films first hit theaters and later the small screen. In fact, I don’t believe I had had such a unique experience until then, unique because I not only got to see his films in a more enjoyable setting—a great improvement over my unwieldy TV set, over which I had thrown a literal tarp—but meeting my hero in person and being touched by his genuine warmth.

Later, during a break between movies, we met the actress Kathy Crosby (listed in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad as Kathryn Grant) who starred in that film alongside Kerwin Mathews; she was lovely and down to earth and I think this was the first time I realized that actors and artists and performers were heroes, not only because they achieved the astounding feats of slaying dragons, and fencing with skeletons, and battling evil sorcerers, but because they were, just like Ray, real people. Real people, with the ability to practice a kind of cinematic magic, a shamanistic talent at making the impossible possible. The fact that Harryhausen had not forfeit the interests of his own childhood lent me hope I could participate someday in a great creative enterprise, or even make a career out of it, just as he and his lifelong friend, the renowned sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury had, whose work I was also beginning to discover.

I did not meet Ray Harryhausen again that night; nor did I meet him ever again. He passed away in 2013, long after I had garnered new heroes and new experiences. I changed schools; took up acting; picked up the guitar. My interests waxed and waned. I was drawn more to writing. But even with all the changes I went through, both mental and physical, I never forgot the person who had first made me believe in the unbelievable, who had altered my perception of the movies and made them a place where art happened and not just entertainment. He’d taught me that art, whether it be the manipulation of molded figures, or the manipulation of words on a page, or some other equally valid creative endeavor, is worthwhile and can be meaningful. Sure, you can become discouraged by the elements of creativity; you can be stymied by the logistics of plot and character; you can be interrupted in your painstaking work by a ringing phone or a director calling “Cut!”; you can be disheartened and lose interest altogether in the projects you’d previously been bound to—all that being true, Harryhausen’s lesson is one we can all learn from and take to heart. And it was that magic matters. Stories matter; they make our lives richer. To an only child who had faced some difficulty early in his life, I can honestly say that Harryhausen saved me, not only by his technical prowess, and controlled mayhem, and the delight of sharp teeth and clashing swords, but by the kindness he showed, in replying to a seven-year-old’s hopeful letter. Sometimes the best magic is the kind exchanged from person to person. Or to put it another, clearer, more perfect way: sometimes kindness is the real magic.

M. G. Turner
February 2022

Pre-ordering “The Barrens: A Novel of Love and Death in the Canadian Arctic”

For friends of this site who’ve been reading about and are intrigued by the novel coming in May 2022 from Arcade Publishing, The Barrens: A Novel of Love and Death in the Canadian Arctic, by the father-daughter duo from Minnesota Kurt Johnson and Ellie Johnson, you can now pre-order it on the publisher’s website. This link is to a buy button for a number of different booksellers.

The novel is picking up a number of enthusiastic endorsements from readers and writers.

“Terrific novel about canoe trip taken by two women in subarctic Canada. An adventure book, a relationship book, a celebration of the outdoors and the challenges one faces in an at times dangerous environment. It reminded me a bit of Peter Heller’s The River.” Andy Weiner, a publishers’ sale representative

The Barrens grabbed me from the opening pages and never let go, a riveting adventure story written by a father-daughter team who clearly have wilderness chops.”—Michael Punke, author of The Revenant and Ridgeline

I’ve rarely come across a novel that’s simultaneously so economical and fulsome, that’s as restrained as it is brimming with unspoken wisdom, and that manages all this while also being propulsive in its storytelling. It’s bravura work that demands a wide audience.”—Peter Geye, author of Wintering and Safe from the Sea

“A deeply compelling tale, told in vivid, elegant but concise prose, The Barrens carried me along, swiftly as the river at the heart of the story. The central character, Lee, will break your heart, although she’ll have none of it. Love, loss, life and death, against a landscape as raw and ancient as the human heart. Most highly recommended.”—Jeffrey Lent, author of In the Fall

“As harrowing as the whitewater adventure it chronicles, The Barrens is an epic tale of wilderness survival and death in the techno age. The writing throbs with presence: the life-force embedded in Canada’s northern frontier landscape and in the life-scape of its queer young heroine as she journeys toward selfhood. Co-authors Kurt and Ellie Johnson reveal the pulse of identity, born of the stories we weave. A mesmerizing, devastating read.”—Carol Bruneau, Canadian author of Brighten the Corner Where You Are: A Novel Inspired by the Life of Maud Lewis

The Barrens is the raw and moving story of two young women paddling by canoe down one of North America’s the most remote rivers—of their coming of age, their love, and terrible loss. I’ve rarely come across a text that is so visual, and so tangible. The Barrens is a vivid portrayal of the Canadian subarctic, and of the human drive to persevere.”—Alex Messenger, author of The Twenty-Ninth Day: Surviving a Grizzly Attack in the Canadian Tundra

#debutnovels #wildernessfiction #canoeing #paddling #Canada #ThelonRiver #queerlit #writers #writingcommunity

 

Sold: “Heroes are Human: Lessons in Resilience, Courage, and Wisdom from the COVID Front Lines” by Bob Delaney with Dave Scheiber

I’m delighted to announce the upcoming publication of Heroes are Human: Lessons in Resilience, Courage, and Wisdom from the COVID Front Lines by Bob Delaney with award-winning journalist Dave Scheiber, which will be the first book published in the US to tell the stories of healthcare workers struggling through the pandemic, with guidance on how they can heal from the herculean challenges they’re facing. It’s scheduled to come out in October 2022 from City Point Press, a distribution client of Simon & Schuster. Our deal for it was announced on Publishersmarketplace this morning.

Delaney’s first book was the 2008 USA Today bestseller Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob, also co-authored with Dave Scheiber, for which I was his editor and publisher at Union Square Press. During a dangerous undercover assignment while a New Jersey State Trooper in his mid-twenties, Bob fell victim to post-traumatic stress (PTS). He recovered with the aid of peer-to-peer therapy—a key ingredient of the new book—and afterward enjoyed a 25-year career as a referee in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Delaney and Scheiber are also co-authors of Surviving the Shadows: A Journey of Hope into Post Traumatic Stress (Sourcebooks 2011). Over the years he’s established himself as a nationally respected leader in dealing with PTS and recovery from trauma. He addresses members of the US armed forces and foreign military, law enforcement, firefighters, first responders, and since COVID began, healthcare workers.

Delaney served the NBA not only as a referee—making it to the top of the field as an “NBA Finals” level official—but also as a supervisor of referees and a spokesperson for the league’s philanthropy NBA Cares. He is known to sports and mainstream media all over the country. The authors will be working with the same high-profile publicity firm that made Covert a national bestseller, which has experience with the NBA and the USA Dream Team squads that won Olympic gold medals.

Heroes are Human is made up of oral history-style testimonials from nurses, doctors, techs, and family members relating their experiences—caring for patients, talking with the very sick, Face-timing with the loved ones of the ill, and trying to save lives the past two years—in Delaney’s empathetic voice, detailing how they can alleviate anxiety and reduce their stress, with examples of peer-to-peer dialogue. The combination of gripping first-hand accounts from doctors, nurses, and families in the COVID trenches joined with Bob’s message of healing and acceptance will be a balm to our fellow Americans from whom so much is being asked.

I’ve long admired and respected Bob’s salt of the earth wisdom and am grateful that we’re working together again to bring his healing message to a wide readership.

Bob Delaney accepting the 2014 Basketball Hall of Fame Human Spirit award.
(Copyright NBAE via Getty / Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler)

 

New York City Winters, Then & Now—Climate Change Reflections

I moved to New York City from Cleveland in early March of 1985, almost 37 years ago. In many of the winters I’ve experienced since the move east, the Hudson River would become icy, as attested to by these pictures I took in January 2015.

Sometimes the ice would be close to shore, as seen here, with the tidal nature of the Hudson ensuring the river didn’t freeze hard. But in the ’90s, I remember extended runs when temperatures didn’t rise above freezing for days or weeks, and temps in the twenties, teens, and single digits were common. Then the ice would become more solid and fill in across the middle of the river. With the tidal shifting less impactful, the ice could stretching toward New Jersey. Someone foolhardy might’ve thought they could walk across, but that would have foolish indeed.

Despite the blustery cold, it was thrilling to watch and listen as the floes heaved, ground, and pitched against one another. I used to feel like I was in my own private Shackleton expedition. If you’ve read Alfred Lansing’s stirring narrative about that sojourn to the South Pole, the ships became trapped amid colossal bergs that stoved in their sides and collapsed their masts. The sailors were driven to near madness by the grinding and gnashing of the ice.

The past several winters? Not so much, a function of planetary warming, I believe. Our winters are definitely becoming less cold. More evidence of this? Flocks of geese used to visit the Hudson shores seasonally, and leave for months at a time, flying further south for warmer climes. Now they’re resident year-round.

 

Looking Back on 2021, Our Year in Editing and Agenting

Yesterday I began totaling up the volume of our business in 2021, to prepare for writing an annual year-end blog post, and I’m pleased to confirm it was by far the best year Philip Turner Book Productions has had since I began operating outside the staff job/corporate publishing world in 2009. My son Ewan, 25, has been working with me for the past two years; it’s good to have a colleague and partner. As Executive Editor and Literary Agent, he heads up our New Stories division, devoted to cultivating new work in fiction, narrative nonfiction, and memoir.

Looking back on the year that ends today, I see that in 2021,

  • We edited manuscripts and book proposals from twenty-five different authors;
  • We sold ten new titles to book publishers, books that will be published in 2022 and beyond. and one title to an audiobook company which came out in 2021. We dispersed advances and royalties to fifteen authors and rights holders. Our sales this year were:
  1. THE BARRENS: A Novel of Love & Death in the Canadian Arctic by father-daughter duo Kurt Johnson and Ellie Johnson, sold to Arcade Publishing, who will publish it on May 3, 2022. This is the first title we’ve sold under our New Stories rubric.
  2. PICTURE SHOW PLAYLIST: Pop Music in Film from the Crystals to Rihanna by Nate Patrin, sold to University of Minnesota Press, whose first book Bring that Beat Back: How Sampling Built Hip-Hop, we also sold to UMP, which they published in 2020.
  3. LURKING UNDER THE SURFACE: Horror, Religion, and the Questions that Haunt Us by Brandon Grafius, sold to Broadleaf Books, which will be published around Halloween 2022.
  4. YOURS, FOR PROBABLY ALWAYS: Martha Gellhorn’s Letters of Love & War, 1930-1949 by Janet Somerville, sold to Penguin Random House Audio with actress Ellen Barkin as the narrator of the audiobook, published in May 2021.
  5. CINEMA OF SWORDS: A Popular Guide to Movies & TV Shows About Knights, Pirates, and Vikings (Plus Samurai and Musketeers) by Lawrence Ellsworth, translator of Alexandre Dumas, sold to Applause Theater and Cinema Books
  6. .

  7. THE ULTIMATE PROTEST: Malcolm W. Browne, Vietnam, and the Photo that Stunned the World by Ray E. Boomhower, sold to University of New Mexico Press, which in November 2021 published Boomhower’s Richard Tregasksis: Reporting Under Fire from Guadalcanal to Vietnam
  8. ROOSEVELT SWEEPS NATION: FDR’s 1936 Landslide and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal by David Pietrusza, sold to Diversion Books, to be published August 2022.
  9. LAST CIRCLE OF LOVE, a novel by Lorna Landvik, acquired by the Lake Union imprint, Amazon Publishing
  10. HEROES ARE HUMAN: Lessons in Resiliency, Courage and Wisdom from the COVID Front Lines by Bob Delaney with Dave Scheiber, co-authors of the bestselling Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob, placed with City Point Press, distributed by Simon & Schuster, to be published Fall 2022.
  11. THE KREMLIN’S NOOSE: Vladimir Putin’s Blood Feud with the Oligarch Who Made Him Ruler of Russia by Amy Knight, sold to Northern Illinois University Press distributed by Cornell University Press; we earlier sold Knight’s Orders to Kill: The Putin Regime and Political Murder (St Martin’s Press, 2017).

In 2021, books that we had sold in earlier years were published:

1) Ten Garments Every Man Should Own: A Practical Guide to Building a Permanent Wardrobe by Pedro Mendes, published by Dundurn Press.
2) Emily Mann: Rebel Artist of the American Theater by Alexis Greene, published by Applause Theater and Cinema Books
3) Between Two Kings: A Sequel to The Three Musketeers (Musketeers Cycle, Book 5) by Alexandre Dumas, translated by Lawrence Ellsworth, published by Pegasus Books
4) Richard Tregaskis: Reporting Under Fire from Guadalcanal to Vietnam by Ray E. Boomhower, published by University of New Mexico Press, and as an audiobook by Blackstone Publishing.
5) The Pot Thief Who Studied the Woman at Otowi Crossing (The Pot Thief Mysteries Book 9) by J. Michael Orenduff, published by Open Road Media.
6) In addition, a manuscript I edited in 2021, THE MOST PRECIOUS GIFT: Memories of the Holocaust, A Legacy of Lisette Lamon, was self-published by David Mendels, the late author’s son.

Also, coming in 2022 will be an anthology about the book business, Among Friends: An Illustrated Oral History of 20th Century Publishing and Bookselling edited by Buz Teacher, co-founder of Running Press. It will be published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, and I have contributed a personal essay entitled, “The Education of a Bookselling Editor.”

Ewan continues to write his own fiction, having completed a story collection in the realm of anthology horror, and is working on a novel. As he likes to say, his touchstones fall somewhere between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Rod Serling. His work may be read upon request.

After 2022, we eagerly anticipate publication of DEVOURING TIME: Jim Harrison, a Life by Todd Goddard, the first biography of the acclaimed fiction writer, master of the novella, gourmand, ardent friend, hunter and fisher, which we sold to Blackstone Publishing.

Entering what will be my thirteenth year working as an independent editor and literary agent—a longer tenure than any of my in-house positions—I am more energized than ever by the opportunities to work closely with authors, more than closely than I was able to do during my latter years in corporate publishing. Even with the many challenges the book industry is facing, such as many bookstores open for only limited, distanced hours due to the lingering pandemic, I am optimistic about the book business, as readers are eager to have the companionship of books, and writers are driven to tell their singular stories.

We work on a wide range of material with special affinity for imperative books that really matter in people’s lives. I’m always interested in first-person work from authors who’ve passed through some crucible of experience that leaves them uniquely equipped to write their book. If you have a project you’re developing, or a personal essay, and want to discuss your work, or a project you think may be ready to offer to publishers, please don’t hesitate to contact one or both of us. We already have a number of terrific projects lined up to edit and represent in the new year, and we’re hopeful 2022 will be a strong year in publishing and the book business, , and a better year for us all. 

As always, please get in touch if you or someone you know is seeking guidance about publishing. Ewan can be reached at ewanmturner [@] gmail [.] com, while my contact info is philipsturner [@] gmail [.] com.

William Blake and My Close Friend Rob Adams

When I woke up this last morning of the long Thanksgiving weekend, I looked at Twitter on my iPhone and saw that this date November 28 is the birthday of the timeless artist William Blake (1757-1843). Immediately, I thought I would share an image of the precious work I have by him, an engraving from his hand, given to me years ago by my close friend, Robert Henry Adams (1955-2001).

After I shared a social media post seen here, on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, I realized I could also do a fuller post that links to earlier blog essays I’ve shared on this website (here, here, and here) about Rob, our meaningful friendship, and a third Franconia College friend pal with whom we constituted a troika, Karl Petrovich.

The Blake gift doesn’t exhaust the fine art that Rob gave me, or occasionally, that I bought from him. There are no less than a dozen such pieces in my Manhattan apartment, such as a print I bought of a circus aerialist by British artist Dame Laura Knight. Another is the framed Lincoln portrait by Civil War-era photographer Alexander Gardner shown here. Sometime in the late 1980s Rob spotted it at an auction, and bought it relatively cheaply due to the unfortunate crease in the middle. Always one to see the bright side, despite the defect, Rob had also spotted the signature, “Your Obt Servt A. Lincoln“, seeming to him in pencil or faded ink, and not a mechanical or mass-reproduced autograph. This made it all but certain it was from Lincoln and Gardner’s time, done in the sixteenth president’s own hand. FYI, the printing near the bottom of the picture reads, from left to right,

A. Gardner, Photographer.         Published by Philip & Solomons, Washington D.C.               Washington

Rob didn’t want to try re-selling it because of the imperfection, and so gave it to me, a (probably) autographed Lincoln photograph. Pretty amazing, right?!

There was some sweet symmetry to the Lincoln gift, because earlier, in the 1970s, for Rob’s wedding to Chicago fashion historian Sandra Adams, I had given him the oversized photography book The Face of Lincoln (Viking, 1979, 15″ x 11 1/2 inches), collecting every known photograph of Lincoln, which at my family’s bookstore in Cleveland, Undercover Books, we were then stocking and selling.  

 

Listing Notable Current Affairs Titles I’ve Worked On

For an editorial assignment on a current affairs title with a major publisher that I’m being considered for—in what amounts to a competitive situation among other candidates—I listed a dozen notable titles I’ve acquired, edited, published, and/or agented over my years in publishing. Below is a screenshot of that list for readers of this blog who may be curious about some of the titles I’ve chosen to work on and be involved with over the years. I should add there are many such titles beyond this dozen. Please let me know if the editorial and publishing services provided by me and my business partner Ewan Turner might be of interest to you.

*So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits—and the President—Failed on Iraq by Greg Mitchell, w/a Preface by Bruce Springsteen; The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption by Barbara Bizants Raymond, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year; and Ahmad’s War, Ahmad’s Peace: Surviving Under Saddam, Dying in the New Iraq by Michael Goldfarb, a NY Times Notable Book.

Publishing November 15, “Richard Tregaskis: Reporting Under Fire From Guadalcanal To Vietnam”

As mentioned on this blog, I’m a lifelong fan of reading biographies, and it’s a delight to work on so many good ones, like Ray E. Boomhower’s new portrait of the life and career of Richard Tregaskis, one of the most accomplished combat correspondents of the twentieth century. Here’s how the catalog copy for University of New Mexico Press’s High Road imprint describes the book:

In the late summer of 1942, more than ten thousand members of the First Marine Division held a tenuous toehold on the Pacific island of Guadalcanal. As American marines battled Japanese forces for control of the island, they were joined by war correspondent Richard Tregaskis…one of only two civilian reporters to land and stay with the marines, and in his notebook he captured the daily and nightly terrors faced by American forces in one of World War II’s most legendary battles–and it served as the premise for his bestselling book, Guadalcanal Diary.

One of the most distinguished combat reporters to cover World War II, Tregaskis later reported on Cold War conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. In 1964 the Overseas Press Club recognized his first-person reporting under hazardous circumstances by awarding him its George Polk Award for his book Vietnam Diary. Boomhower’s riveting book is the first to tell Tregaskis’s gripping life story, concentrating on his intrepid reporting experiences during World War II and his fascination with war and its effect on the men who fought it.

 

Richard B. Frank, author of Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle, says of the new biography:

“Alongside Ernie Pyle, Tregaskis was perhaps the most outstanding American war correspondent of WWII. [He’s] best know for…Guadalcanal Diary, but that book covered only one small chapter of his reporting from the front lines. Ray Boohmoer’s excellent new biography finally does justice to Tregaskis in this deeply researched, thoughtful portrait of the man and his times.”

 

The book’s official pub date will be November 15, and I’m getting an early start on congratulating the author, for whom I’ve already sold a second biography of an important journalist to UNMP, The Ultimate Protest: Malcolm W Browne, Vietnam, and the Photo that Stunned the World. Congrats, Ray!