Ross Lockridge, Jr.

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(1914-1948)

1948Raintree County. The events of a single day (July 4, 1892) in the life of an Indiana high school principal occasion an impressive animation of a region and an era in the author's first and only novel. In the midst of the acclaim that greets the book, Lockridge commits suicide.

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Ross Lockridge, Jr.

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Ross Lockridge, Jr.

Lockridge in 1947
Born Ross Franklin Lockridge, Jr.
April 25, 1914(1914-04-25)
Bloomington, Indiana, USA
Died March 6, 1948(1948-03-06) (aged 33)
Bloomington, Indiana, USA
Occupation novelist
Nationality  United States
Alma mater Indiana University
Period 1948
Genres Historical fiction
Notable work(s) Raintree County

www.raintreecounty.com

Ross Franklin Lockridge, Jr., (April 25, 1914 – March 6, 1948) was an American novelist of the mid-20th century. He is noted for Raintree County (1948), an expansive attempt at creating the "Great American Novel".

Biography

Lockridge was born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana. He graduated from Indiana University in 1935 with the highest average in the history of the university. Lockridge married and had four children.

Lockridge's novel Raintree County was published in early 1948, to great critical acclaim. It traces the 19th-century history of a fictional midwestern county through the reminiscences of its protagonist, John Wickliff Shawnessy.

Suffering from severe depression, Lockridge committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning shortly after the novel's publication. His grave is in Rose Hill Cemetery in Bloomington.

In 1957, MGM released the motion picture version of "Raintree County" starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift and Eva Marie Saint. It received fair to good reviews and did moderately well at the box office.

References

  • Leggett, John (1974). Ross and Tom: Two American Tragedies. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-21733-X. 
  • Lockridge, Larry (1994). Shade of the Raintree: The Life and Death of Ross Lockridge, Jr.. New York: Viking Penguin. ISBN 0-670-85440-9. 
  • Lockridge, Ernest (2004). Travels with Ernest: Crossing the Literary/Sociological Divide. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7591-0596-0. 
  • Lockridge, Ernest (2011). Skeleton Key to the Suicide of My Father, Ross Lockridge, Jr., Author of Raintree County. Charleston: Global Enterprises. ISBN 978-1-4609-0976-8. 

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