The Riddle of Raintree County

[ghost of miles]

An article I wrote for Bloom Magazine about Ross Lockridge Jr., a 33-year-old author who took his own life here in Bloomington in 1948 the same week that his debut novel Raintree County hit #1 on the national bestseller lists.

Edited October 26, 2007 by ghost of miles

[BruceH]

Thanks for this.

[ghost of miles]

Thanks for reading it, Bruce. It's a sad story--RL Jr. was incredibly talented, and today I think he would have made it through his depression. What happened in late 1947/early 1948 was nearly a perfect storm of psychic/public events; it's a story that's haunted me for some years.

[ghost of miles]

Bruce, meant to add that if you're interested in SHADE OF THE RAINTREE--Larry Lockridge's bio of his dad--you can get a hardcover copy of it free via the Raintree County website. Although the bios of famous people by their children are often worthless, Larry's is very well-done--in part because he himself is a very good writer and well-versed in matters literary (he teaches at NYU and has written several other books). It got very good reviews when Viking published it in 1994, but it's now out-of-print. Even if you're not interested in the novel itself, the bio is an interesting case-study (and much more) of an ambitious mid-20th-century American literary mindset.