Ross and Tom: 2 American - Softcover

Leggett, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014004051X ISBN 13: 9780140040517

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1975

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Here, at last back in print, is the classic dual biography of Ross Lockridge and Thomas Heggen, two authors who achieved sudden fame and fortune and then self-destructed. Ross Lockridge, the author of the spectacularly best-selling Raintree County, and Thomas Heggen, the creator of Mister Roberts, both were thrust in the 1940s into unexpected fame and money. Each was young and inexperienced in the ways of the world. John Leggett explores their lives, their loves, their friendships, and their writing and publishing experiences to discover what ultimately and tragically failed them. Ross and Tom portrays two gifted writers and their final descent into that Fitzgeraldian crack-up where "in the real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning."

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About the Author

John Leggett lives in San Francisco and in Napa, California, where he is the director of the Napa Valley Writers' Conference. He is the author of five novels and was long the director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Review

"A great book." -- Leon Edel

"A thoroughly absorbing and finally most moving chronicle of what two best-selling authors did and suffered in homage to what William James called the American bitch goddess--the success business." -- Alfred Kazin

"Enthralling...ought to be read by all editors, publishers, writers, and critics and by the general reading public...the best case-history account of the writing profession in America." -- James A. Michener

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