I am publishing this book to fulfill my promise to Harold A. Sinclair's widow, Ethel, that I would do a book on him. During late 1979 and throughout 1980, I regularly visited her home at 509 North Roosevelt in Bloomington, Illinois, an easy five-block walk from my digs on West Locust Street. When I began, Ethel had recently turned 70 and had cancer. By the time I finished my interviews, she was dying. Then I had to leave for my IllinoisStateUniversity sabbatical in 1981 at the University of South Florida. When I returned a year later, I learned she had died.
It has been over a quarter century, marked by my retirement from IllinoisStateUniversity, delays, procrastination, and guilt feelings, as well as new career demands at AshfordUniversity. However, I finally overcame all the obstacles and got around to doing what I should have done long ago; viz. this book.
I never met Harold, at least not in person, though I know him well through discussions with Ethel and through his books, especially the Everton Trilogy, which is dealt with intensively herein. Harold died of brain cancer in 1966, three years before I arrived at IllinoisStateUniversity, a newly minted University of California at Berkeley Ph.D. in hand. A decade later, after publishing eight academic books and texts, including my Harper and Row bestseller, THE NEW TEACHER, I became interested in fiction. So, I visited Ethel.
I benefitted from Ethel reading and commenting on my short stories. She helped me become a fiction writer. In 2001, I published a book of stories on fictional Quinlan, Iowa, based on Clinton, Iowa, much in the mold of Harold's Everton Trilogy that drew on Bloomington, Illinois' history. In 2006, I also co-authored and published a 701-page historical novel, GIFTS FROM DECORAH LAURAH, based on a mystery surrounding a plan by President Abraham Lincoln to prevent the 1862 Sioux Uprising in the MinnesotaTerritory.
He wrote of Abraham Lincoln in all his greatness. He wrote of George Rogers Clark on the frontier. He wrote brilliantly about the Civil War. He wrote the best book ever about the Port of New Orleans. He wrote a unique book on the Bloomington, Illinois PANTAGRAPH. He wrote a novel on jazz in the South that jazz musicians read and enjoy. He wrote THE HORSE SOLDIERS that was made into a John Wayne movie.
The May 23, 1938, NEWSWEEK acclaimed John Steinbeck, Louis Paul and Harold Sinclair as the United States' best authors.
This book, by retired Illinois State University Professor, G. Louis Heath, is long overdue. It is the first on Harold Sinclair's important work and amazing life.
About the Author
G. LOUIS HEATH, born Sept. 4, 1944, earned his B.A. (1966), M.A. (1967), and Ph.D. (1969) at the University of California at Berkeley. His hometown is Oroville, California, a town of about 9,000 in the Sierra Foothills, a three-hour drive northeast from Berkeley. He has published eleven books, including the Harper and Row bestseller, THE NEW TEACHER; a history of the Students for a Democratic Society, VANDALS IN THE BOMB FACTORY; a volume about the popular resistance to the Vietnam War, MUTINY DOES NOT HAPPEN LIGHTLY; a book of short stories, MESKWAKI BURIAL MOUNDS AND OTHER STORIES FROM QUINLAN, IOWA (2001); and, a co-authored novel, GIFTS FROM DECORAH LAURAH (2006), a page-turner mystery that revolves around a plan by President Abraham Lincoln to prevent the 1862 Sioux Uprising in the Minnesota Territory.
Dr. Heath is retired from IllinoisStateUniversity. He has published two memoirs about his ISU career: REDBIRD PROF and LEAVES OF MAPLE, AN ISU PROFESSOR’S MEMOIRS OF 7 SUMMERS’ TEACHING IN CANADIAN UNIVERSITIES, 1972-1978. He began a new career in 1988 at Ashford University, Clinton, Iowa, where he teaches sociology, criminal justice, and liberal arts courses, and has served as the Associate Dean, College of Education and Social Sciences.
