Edwin O'Connor
| Edwin O'Connor | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 29, 1918 Providence, Rhode Island, USA |
| Died |
March 23, 1968 (aged 49) Boston, Massachusetts |
| Occupation | Novelist, radio personality, journalist |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse | Veniette Caswell Weil O'Connor |
Edwin O'Connor (July 29, 1918 – March 23, 1968) was an American journalist, novelist, and radio commentator who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1962 for his novel The Edge of Sadness (1961). His ancestry was Irish, and his novels concerned the Irish-American experience and often dealt with the lives of politicians and priests.
O'Connor was born to a medical doctor in Providence, Rhode Island, but was raised in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He was an alumnus of La Salle Academy and the University of Notre Dame. After graduation, he served in the United States Coast Guard during World War II. In 1946 he began working as a freelance author, selling his stories and reports to numerous magazines, including Atlantic Monthly.
During the 1950s O'Connor began a career as a television critic for two Boston newspapers, a profession he would follow for the remainder of his life. He also published his first novel, The Oracle (1951).
Soon afterward, he published the novel for which he is most remembered, The Last Hurrah (1956). The novel concerns a Boston Irish politician, Frank Skeffington, as related by a nephew whom he invites to accompany him on what is an eventually unsuccessful reelection campaign. Skeffington has a gentlemanly manner, lacing his talk with literary quotations. He is slightly corrupt, but delivers service to his constituents. He is an expert at balancing the claims of the various Boston-area ethnic groups. But his time has passed, and he loses the election. While not a roman à clef, there is some similarity between Skeffington and Boston mayor James Michael Curley. This novel was adapted for film in 1958, with John Ford directing a screenplay by Frank S. Nugent. Starring Spencer Tracy, Jeffrey Hunter, and Donald Crisp, the picture was not a commercial success. But, as Charles Fanning notes, "The windfall profits from The Last Hurrah made O'Connor for the first time financially secure."
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