William March
| William March | |
|---|---|
William March, c. 1933
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| Born |
September 18, 1893 Mobile, Alabama |
| Died | May 15, 1954 (aged 60) New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Occupation |
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| Genre | Psychological realism |
| Literary movement | The Lost Generation |
William March (September 18, 1893 – May 15, 1954) was an American writer of psychological fiction and a highly decorated US Marine. The author of six novels and four short-story collections, March was praised by critics but never attained great popularity.
March grew up in rural Alabama in a family so poor that he could not finish high school, and he did not earn a high school equivalency until he was 20. He later studied law but was again unable to afford to finish his studies. In 1917, while working in a Manhattan law office, he volunteered for the US Marines and saw action in World War I, for which he was decorated with some of the highest honors—the French Croix de Guerre, the American Distinguished Service Cross, and the U.S. Navy Cross. After the war he again worked in a law office before embarking on a financially successful business career. He also began writing, first short stories, then in 1933 a novel based on his war experiences, Company K. His follow-up work was the "Pearl County" series, novels and short fiction set in his native south Alabama, the most successful of which is the novel The Looking-Glass. However, literary success eluded him. His last novel, The Bad Seed, was published in 1954, the year March died. It became a bestseller, but he never saw his story adapted first for the stage in 1954, and then for film in 1956 and 1985.
March was one of twelve inaugural inductees to the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame on June 8, 2015.
William March was born William Edward Campbell, in Florida, where his father worked as a "timber cruiser", estimating which stands of trees were big enough for lumber companies to invest in a saw mill in the area. He was the eldest son of eleven children (two of whom died in infancy) and grew up in and around Mobile, Alabama. His father was an occasional heavy drinker who had a fondness for reciting poetry (especially Edgar Allan Poe's) at the dinner table. His mother, whose maiden name was Susan March, was probably better educated and taught the children to read and write; in the eyes of her family, she had married beneath herself. Neither parent seemed to have supported young March's literary efforts; he later stated he had composed a 10,000 line poem at the age of 12 but had burned the manuscript. Having 8 other siblings, March was afforded no privileges; by the time he was 14 the family moved to Lockhart, Alabama, preventing him from going to high school. (Lockhart would later become the imaginary Hodgetown, Pearl County, in March's novels Come in at the Door (1934) and The Tallons (1936).) Instead, March received occasional schooling, probably in one-room edifices then common in sawmill towns. He found employment in the office of a lumber mill.
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