Larry Brown (author)
| Larry Brown | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 9, 1951 Oxford, Mississippi |
| Died | November 24, 2004 (aged 53) Oxford, Mississippi |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | United States |
| Period | 1984–2004 |
| Genre | novel, short story, essay |
| Subject | Southern literature |
| Literary movement | Grit Lit |
| Notable works | Dirty Work, Father and Son |
Larry Brown (July 9, 1951 – November 24, 2004) was an American novelist, non-fiction and short story writer. He won numerous awards including the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for fiction, the Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Award, and Mississippi's Governor's Award For Excellence in the Arts. He was also the first two-time winner of the Southern Book Award for Fiction.
His notable works include Dirty Work, Father and Son, Joe and Big Bad Love. The latter was adapted for a 2001 film of the same name, starring Debra Winger and Arliss Howard. In 2013 a film adaptation of Larry Brown's Joe was released, featuring Nicolas Cage.
Independent filmmaker Gary Hawkins has directed an award-winning documentary of Brown's life and work in The Rough South of Larry Brown (2011).
Larry Brown was born on July 9, 1951 and grew up near Oxford, Mississippi. He graduated from high school in Oxford, but did not want to go to college, opting instead for a stint in the Marines. Many years later, he took a creative writing class from the University of Mississippi. Brown worked at a small stove company before joining the city fire department in Oxford.
An avid reader, Brown began writing in 1980 in his spare time while he worked as a firefighter (at City Station No.1 on North Lamar Blvd.) His nonfiction book On Fire describes how Brown, having trouble with sleeping at the fire station, would stay up to read and write while the other firefighters slept. His duties as a firefighter included answering fire alarms on the University of Mississippi campus and in the city of Oxford, including Rowan Oak – the home of William Faulkner, but now a museum. Faulkner died in 1962—on Larry Brown's 11th birthday.
By his own account Brown wrote five unpublished novels, including the first one he wrote about a man-eating bear loose in Yellowstone Park. Brown used these kinds of personal experiences when talking to beginning writers. He could tell them not to become discouraged, if only to judge by the rather unceremonious false starts to his own writing career. Brown also indicated that he wrote hundreds of short stories before he began to be published.
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