Long Remember. Until Michael Shaara'sThe Killer Angels (1974), Kantor's first major novel is considered the best fictionalized account of the Battle of Gettysburg. Kantor was an Iowa-born newspaperman whose first novel, Diversey, about the Chicago underworld, appeared in 1928.
Happy Land. A novella about a young sailor killed in the Pacific and the recollections of his father, a Midwestern pharmacist, about the principal events in their lives. As Robert Van Gelder observes in his review, "The story is as sentimental as any Currier & Ives print, but it is effective and it fits its time."
Glory for Me. This novel in verse depicts the reception received by three discharged American servicemen who return to the same hometown. It would become the basis for the acclaimed 1946 film The Best Years of Our Lives, with a screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood.
Andersonville. Kantor's documentary novel treating the desperate conditions in the notorious Confederate prison earns the Pulitzer Prize. Historian Bruce Catton called it "the best Civil War novel I have ever read."
Career Highlights: The Best Years of Our Lives, The Andersonville Trial, Gun Crazy
First Major Screen Credit: The Voice of Bugle Ann (1936)
Biography
In the course of a 40-year writing career, MacKinlay Kantor found time to contribute to the big screen as both a novelist and screenwriter. Born in Webster City, IA, he was the son of Effie McKinlay, the editor of a local daily newspaper, and he began his career as a journalist at the age of 17. He had aspirations as an author and at age 24 finished his first novel, Diversey, which was not a success. Kantor spent the next six years making a living writing for newspapers. Then, in 1934, he published Long Remember, a novel that became a best-seller and was so successful that the film rights were purchased; Kantor followed the lead and headed to Hollywood, where three of his books were turned into movies over the next few years. The outbreak of World War II drew Kantor back into journalism -- by most accounts, he really wanted to play a fighting role but instead went over to Europe as a correspondent covering the air war. Kantor found fresh literary success in 1945 when he wrote Glory for Me, a novel in verse form that dealt with men in uniform trying to adjust to civilian life after World War II. Despite its being written in stanzaic form, the book was surprisingly straightforward and gritty in its sensibilities about its characters; Glory for Me was well received at the time by critics and the public alike, and it became a huge success. Even before publication, it had been optioned by Samuel Goldwyn and was transformed by playwright Robert E. Sherwood into the screenplay for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), arguably the best movie that Goldwyn ever released and one of the most honored movies in Hollywood history. Kantor continued writing books and articles, and the occasional screenplay for the next 20 years -- one of his Saturday Evening Post articles became the basis for Joseph H. Lewis' classic film noir Gun Crazy (1949), with a script credited to Kantor and "Millard Kaufman," a pseudonym for blacklistee Dalton Trumbo. In 1955, Kantor published the most successful and influential book of his career, Andersonville, a novel dealing with the Civil War and the notorious Confederate prison camp. A best-seller for years after its publication, it had an impact on 1950s readers similar to that of Michael Shaara's novel The Killer Angels in the 1980s (which became the basis for the movie Gettysburg). It won Kantor the Pulitzer Prize and elevated him to the front rank of American novelists, and later became the basis for the dramatization The Andersonville Trial (1970). His other work included more historical fiction -- Romance of Rosy Ridge and The Voice of Bugle Ann, which were filmed before the war, and the books Gentle Annie, Gettysburg, The Gun-Toter, and Midnight Lace, among many others -- as well as various non-fiction works including Mission With Le May, about U.S. Army Air Force General Curtis Le May, and speculative works such as If the South Had Won the Civil War. Kantor was, in some respects, the literary equivalent of his fellow Iowan, composer Meredith Willson -- his work tended toward the patriotic and optimistic, attributes that were in short supply and little demand as the 1960s wore on. His last direct contribution to movies came in the form of Disney's adaptation of Kantor's novel God and My Country, which became Follow Me, Boys! (1966), the story of a small-town scoutmaster played by Fred MacMurray. During the mid-'60s, he also published an article in Popular Science magazine declaring that he believed in the existence of UFOs. Generally, Kantor espoused conservative political views which, coupled with his patriotic impulses, made him notably less popular during the final two decades of his life, as the public and the literary establishment fell out of sympathy with his outlook. He is remembered today principally in connection with The Best Years of Our Lives, which has endured in popularity and respect for more than 50 years, and Andersonville. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Kantor was noted for his sparing use of punctuation[2].
Politically, Kantor was strongly conservative.[citation needed]
Kantor published his first poem at the age of 17, and at 18 he won a state story writing contest. His first novel, Diversey, was about Chicago gangsters and was written in 1928, when the subject matter was contemporary. In the 1930s, Kantor first wrote about the American Civil War with his novel Long Remember. Kantor had spoken with Civil War veterans when he was young, and he was an avid collector of first-hand narratives. Long Remember is one of the first realistic novels about the Civil War.
Kantor's long narrative poem in blank verse, Glory for Me, published as a novella in 1945, provided the basis of the Academy Award winning film The Best Years of Our Lives.
He wrote over 30 novels in his lifetime, and he returned to the theme of the Civil War frequently, including Gettysburg, If the South Had Won the Civil War and Lee and Grant at Appomattox. His last novel was 1975's Valley Forge. Kantor also wrote the screenplay for the noted film noirGun Crazy (aka Deadly Is the Female) (1950) and appeared in the 1958 film Wind Across the Everglades as an actor.
— (August 1965) [November 1960 - Look magazine]. If the South had won the Civil War. Isa Barnett (illustrations) (Bantam Pathfinder ed.). New York: Bantam Books, Inc.
