A.B. Guthrie Jr.

Alfred Bertram Guthrie Jr. (January 13, 1901 – April 26, 1991) was an American novelist, screenwriter, historian, and literary historian who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1950 for his novel The Way West.

Nine Guthrie children were born, but most of them died as infants. A.B. was a sickly child and the Guthries relocated their children to Ontario, California, for their health. Two months later their 13-year-old daughter died from a tick bite and the Guthries relocated back to Montana. There, some months later, their youngest son also died. Only three of the nine children survived to adulthood.

A constant reader, Guthrie tried to write while in high school, "fiction pretty much, some essays, but I majored in journalism. My father had been a newspaper man for four years in this little town in Kentucky, and I guess he thought it was the way to become a writer," an idea his son disputed because the crafts are so different. He attended the University of Montana, where he was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity.

Guthrie won the Nieman Fellowship from Harvard, while working as the executive editor of the newspaper Lexington Leader in Kentucky. While at Harvard he made friends with Theodore Morrison, an English professor, "who knew so much about writing, probably more than I ever will. And somehow, he took me under his wing. With patience and guidance and always deliberation, he taught me the language of fiction."

After working 22 years as a news reporter and editor for the Lexington Leader, Guthrie wrote his first novel. During 1944 he had been attempting to write the story of the mountain men. "It wasn't until I went to Harvard that I got in gear. Then I went back and worked for the newspaper for another year or so." Guthrie's boss was very understanding and as long as Guthrie performed his news duties satisfactorily he was allowed to take his afternoons off to write fiction. He was able to quit his reporting job after the publication of the novels The Big Sky and The Way West (1950 Pulitzer Prize). Guthrie then returned to Choteau, Montana, because he said it was his "point of outlook on the universe". He split his residence between Choteau and Great Falls, Montana, an hour away from Choteau. (Excerpted from Jean Henry-Mead's interview with Guthrie at his home for her book, Maverick Writers (), pages 1–8; later reprinted in Westerners (), pages 103-115.)

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