Davis Grubb

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Davis Alexander Grubb (born July 23, 1919 in Moundsville , West Virginia , † July 24, 1980 in New York City , New York ) was an American writer.

life and career

Davis Grubb was born into a respected family in his hometown in West Virginia to a socially conservative architect. After graduating from school, Grubb first worked at a radio station in Clarksburg . He wanted to be a graphic artist and studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh before he had to drop out of his studies because of color blindness. In 1940 he worked as a page for NBC in New York. In the 1940s, Grubb first worked as a radio announcer and copywriter while he was hoping for a career as a writer. In 1944 he sold his first short story to Good Housekeeping for $ 500, and other stories followed with Collier’s and American Magazine .

After the short story market became smaller in 1950, Grubb wanted to write novels. His first two attempts at a novel remained unpublished, but his third attempt, The Night of the Hunter (1953), was the greatest success of his career. The work about two children fleeing their psychopathic stepfather during the Great Depression was praised by most critics and is now regarded by many as a small classic of American literature. The film adaptation of the same name from 1955, directed by Charles Laughton and starring Robert Mitchum , also became a classic. In total, Grubb published a further nine novels, three volumes of short stories, and other short stories in magazines. At least four of his works have been translated into German. Most of Grubb's works are counted among the sub-genre of Southern Gothic .

Grubb believed that no writer should write a story twice, and so he experimented in his subsequent novels. However, these were never as successful at least with critics as The Night of the Hunter . His other works include the historical novel A Dream of Kings (1955) about the American Civil War, the ambitious work The Voices of Glory (1962) about a nurse during the Great Depression and the detective novel Fool's Parade (1969), which in 1971 with James Stewart in the main role as The Merciless was filmed. Social issues were particularly important to him in his novels, including racism, corruption and labor oppression. The eccentric author had just finished his last novel Ancient Lights when he died of lung cancer in 1980, one day after his 61st birthday.

Works

Novels

  • The Night of the Hunter (1953)
    • dt .: The hunter's night
  • A Dream of Kings (1955)
  • The Watchman (1958)
  • The Voices of Glory (1962)
  • A Tree Full of Stars (1965)
    • German: Christmas tree miracle
  • Shadow of My Brother (1966, written as early as 1956)
    • German: My brother's shadow
  • The Golden Sickle (1968)
  • Fools' Parade (1969)
    • German: crook paths
  • The Barefoot Man (1971)
  • Ancient Lights (1982, posthumous)

Collections of short stories

  • Twelve Tales of Suspense and the Supernatural (1964)
  • The Siege of 318: Thirteen Mystical Stories (1978)
  • You Never Believe Me and Other Stories (1989, posthumous)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Biography at WVWC Edu ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wvwc.edu
  2. Biography at WVWC Edu ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wvwc.edu
  3. Biography at WVWC Edu ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wvwc.edu
  4. Biography at the Internet Movie Database
  5. Biography at the Film Noir Foundation