Ross Lockridge, Jr.
| Ross Lockridge, Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | Ross Franklin Lockridge, Jr. April 25, 1914 Bloomington, Indiana, United States |
| Died | March 6, 1948 (aged 33) Bloomington, Indiana, United States |
| Occupation | novelist |
| Nationality | United States |
| Alma mater | Indiana University |
| Period | 1948 |
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Notable works | Raintree County |
| Website | |
| www |
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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), a widely praised novel which many readers and critics considered a contender for the "Great American Novel," and for his death by suicide just as it was reaching the top of the best-seller lists.
Ross was born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana, the youngest of four children of Elsie Shockley Lockridge and the populist historian and lecturer Ross Lockridge Sr. Through his father, he was a double cousin of the future novelist Mary Jane Ward. He was by all accounts a handsome, amiable, and talented young man, known as "A-plus Lockridge" for his easy mastery of school assignments. "He was of medium size," wrote his biographer, the novelist John Leggett, "with curly, dark brown hair and a striking handsomeness, but the unusual thing about him was his energy. It glowed and crackled." Elsewhere, he was described as a "slight, dark-haired boy with blue-gray eyes that shone in joy." At the same time, like many high-performing youngsters, he seemed sensitive to criticism and troubled by the occasional setback, even when he lost a chess game.
He graduated from Indiana University in 1935 with the highest average in the history of the university, despite having earned an unaccustomed B during two semesters at the Sorbonne in Paris. The year abroad made a great impression on the young Hoosier, not least in setting his standard for future success: "Write the greatest single piece of literature ever composed," he instructed himself. And again: "the first object of my return [to the U.S.] shall be the complete mastery of the English language to the end that my use of the language be the most brilliant ever known."
Following his graduation, he was sidelined for nearly a year by "scarlet fever ... and possibly rheumatic fever." He returned to the university in 1936 as an English instructor and M.A. candidate, writing his thesis on "Byron and Napoleon." He later referred to this period of his life as "the lost years," though they included his marriage to Vernice Baker, the birth of their first child, and a considerable body of apprentice writing, including what seems to have been an early stab at the themes that would eventually reach fruition in Raintree County.
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