Pat Frank
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Pat Frank
Biography
Author, journalist, and government consultant Harry Hart, who wrote books and stories under the pseudonym Pat Frank, was born in Chicago in 1907. He spent most of his early career in Florida, apart from a couple of years in New York and Washington (and service overseas during World War II, when he worked for the Office of War Information and was a correspondent in Italy, Austria, Germany, and Turkey). After the war, he returned to work as a domestic journalist but also began writing nonfiction books, using the name Pat Frank, in which he took on the Washington bureaucracy and challenged many assumptions about how well the government functioned. These works led to his speculative fiction and stories such as Forbidden Area, which posited the notion of America falling victim to a sneak Soviet military attack (and which was adapted to television, with the Soviet agent played by the quintessential all-American boy of the era, Tab Hunter). Hart's most enduringly popular work is the novel Alas, Babylon, which tells the story of ordinary Americans in an isolated Florida community coping with survival following a Soviet-American nuclear war. For all of his criticisms of the government, Hart was respected enough to be employed as a consultant by the Department of Defense and NASA. Alas, Babylon has seen dozens of printings since its original publication in 1959, and was still in print in 1999, some 35 years after its author's death. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
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Pat Frank
| Pat Frank | |
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| Born | Harry Hart Frank Jr. May 5, 1907 Chicago, Illinois, USA |
| Died | October 12, 1964 (aged 57) Jacksonville, Florida, USA |
| Occupation | Journalist and author |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | American |
| Citizenship | United States of America |
| Alma mater | University of Florida |
| Notable work(s) | Alas, Babylon, Mr. Adam |
| Children | Perry Frank Patrick Frank |
Pat Frank (May 5, 1907 – October 12, 1964) is the pen name of the American writer, newspaperman, and government consultant Harry Hart Frank.[1] Frank's best known work is the 1959 post-apocalyptic novel Alas, Babylon. His other books include Mr. Adam, Hold Back the Night and Forbidden Area.
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Contents
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Biography
Frank was born in Chicago in 1907. Frank spent many years as a journalist and information handler for several newspapers, agencies, and government bureaus.[2] During his early career, he lived mainly in New York and Washington (and service overseas during World War II, when he worked for the Office of War Information and was a correspondent in Italy, Austria, Germany, and Turkey). He died on October 12, 1964 in Jacksonville, Florida, age 57, of acute pancreatitis.[3]
Works
Nearly all men are sterile in Mr. Adam (1946), Frank's first published work. His other novels include Hold Back the Night, An Affair of State, and Forbidden Area. Frank's experiences reporting on the Korean War are described in his autobiographical travelogue The Long Way Round and influenced Hold Back the Night.
Frank wrote his most popular work, the post-apocalyptic novel Alas, Babylon, while living in Tangerine, Florida, on Lake Beauclaire near Mount Dora. Vivian Owens, an author familiar with local history, states that "Pistolville," the name Frank gave to an area near Fort Repose in the novel, was in fact a location situated just between the southern edge of Mount Dora to its north and Tangerine to its south.[4] According to Owens, greater Mount Dora was intended by Frank to be the model for his semi-fictional Fort Repose.[5]
Frank also authored a 160 page non-fiction book, How To Survive the H Bomb And Why (1962).
His short story "The Girl Who Almost Got Away" was the basis for the Howard Hawk's movie Man's Favorite Sport.
Frank received the American Heritage Foundation Award in 1961.
See also
References
- Notes
- ^ "Milestones: Oct. 23, 1964". Time Magazine. 23 October 1964. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,897355,00.html. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
- ^ "Pat Frank". HarperCollinsPublishers. http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/3279/Pat_Frank/index.aspx?authorID=3279. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
- ^ "Pat Frank Biography". The New York Times. http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=212183&mod=bio.
- ^ Owens 2000, p. ?.
- ^ "Alas, Babylon: Mount Dora, Florida.". Everything2.com. 18 October 2006. http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1226500. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
- Bibliography
- Owens, Vivian W. The Mount Dorans: African American History Notes of a Florida Town. Waynesboro, VA: Eschar Publications, 2000. ISBN 0-9623839-8-8.
External links
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