One of the 20th century's most acclaimed writers, John Hersey (1914–1993) started writing for publication a few years after he graduated from Yale in 1936 and continued until his late seventies, just a few months before he died from cancer. Persistently writing, researching, and revising, he no sooner finished one project when something in it seemed to lead him to the next.
Over the course of 50 years, Hersey wrote 14 novels and several books of nonfiction, as well as numerous articles, profiles, short stories, essays, commentaries, and sketches for Time, Life, and The New Yorker.
His work as a reporter fed his novels, and in a sense both were fed by poetry and his aesthetic sensibilities. Hersey's nonfiction and fiction were precursors of New Journalism. Critics called him another Nathaniel Hawthorne, Stephen Crane, or Ernest Hemingway.
Hersey had an eye for the telling detail and a talent for pacing a story. He knew how to let the action build precisely, slowly, and evocatively until he had fully enmeshed his readers in his narrative, and in this way, as Jeremy Treglown shows, Hersey not only reported his stories, he brought them to life. How he did so is the province of Mr. Straight Arrow: The Career of John Hersey, Author of “Hiroshima.”
Starting in 1937, when Hersey joined Time as a staff writer and ending with the posthumous publication of his final book, Key West Tales (1994), Hersey was a prolific and inspiring writer. He wrote mostly about actual events — some of them connected to the Far East and World War II.
Read Full Article »
