Late Starters
This group of six authors published their first novel at 49 or over.
George Blagowidow (pronounced Blah-GO-vee-doff, according to the Chicago Tribune)is in the happy and unusual position, for an author, of being founder and president of a publishing house, Hippocrene Books. He published one of his novels, while larger firms published the other two. Most of his writings have been non-fiction.
Born in Poland in 1923, he survived the Nazi occupation and immigrated to Belgium in 1945. After attending business school there, he moved to the U.S. and got his MBA and Ph.D. at New York University. He became an American citizen in 1956. He worked in marketing and management for several major New York publishers.
In 1970, he founded Hippocrene (named for the fountain of the muses in Greek mythology). “I wanted to be in a small publishing house to recover from this corporate life. It is not necessary to be motivated all the time by profit,” he told the Chicago Tribune in 1994. So Blagowidow publishes books he thinks are worthwhile, like dictionaries in many languages, including Somali and Pushtu, and classics of Polish history and literature.
His own writing career began in the ‘60s, with technical tomes about marketing. In his 1977 LJ piece, he said that he turned to fiction because there was only so much one could learn from fact. His first novel was a World War II thriller that drew on memories of his youth in occupied Poland. After another wartime thriller and a love story, he returned to non-fiction, writing travel books.
Novels
Last Train from Berlin Doubleday 1977 * #“Despite some annoying loose ends, this engrossing first novel rushes toward a breathless climax.” –Library Journal
Operation Parterre Hippocrene 1982 *“a slow-paced adventure novel with appealing characters but wooden dialogue and a weak plot” –Library Journal
In Search of the Lady Lion Tamer Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1987 * # “standard midlife crisis fare” –Library Journal
Main sources: “Pulaski Detour” by John Blades in the Chicago Tribune, 2/23/94
Contemporary Authors
Edward Bonetti’s first and only published novel was in fact a novella plus short stories; he prefers shorter forms.
Born in Boston in 1928, Bonetti got his Bachelor’s from Boston University and his Master’s from New York University. He served in the U.S. Army and listed his occupations as longshoreman, electronic technician, film actor (He appeared in Tough Guys Don’t Dance, directed by Norman Mailer, in 1987.), and social worker. From 1967 on, he has been a full-time writer. He lives on Cape Cod.
Bonetti published poetry collections in 1969 and 1986. His stories have appeared in literary magazines; five appeared in New Letters between 1972 and 1993.
Novel
The Wine Cellar Viking 1977 * “Five stories and a novella, but the stories shouldn’t get in the way…Bonetti’s on sure, textured ground here.” --Kirkus Reviews
Main source: Contemporary Authors
-Goodrum in 1977-
Charles Alvin Goodrum was a librarian (of Congress, no less) who on retirement turned to writing comedy-mysteries with a library setting.
Goodrum was born in 1923 in Pittsburg, Kansas, and earned his B.A. at University of Wichita. He studied at Princeton University and got his M.A. at Columbia University in 1949. He worked at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. from 1949 to 1979, rising to the directorship of planning and development and writing several nonfiction works about the institution. He contributed articles to anthologies and magazines, including the New Yorker. He wrote a memoir that became a Walt Disney television show.
His novels were set in the imaginary Werner-Bok Library in Washington. The series detective was chief librarian Betty Crighton Jones. Goodrum told Contemporary Authors that he found mystery fiction a welcome relief from heavy non-fiction, although the latter was much more lucrative.
Dewey Decimated, Crown 1977 HarperColins 1988 # “Goodrum’s classic.” --Education Libraries 21, 1 (1997)
Carnage of the Realm, Crown, 1979* # published in England as Dead for a Penny, Gollancz, 1979.
The Best Cellar, St. Martin's 1987 * HarperCollins 1988 #
A Slip of the Tong, St. Martin's, 1992.* # A jaunty approach to scholarship; a cavalier approach to mystery.” --Kirkus
Main source: Contemporary Authors
Written by Daphne Drohobyczer
Upon retiring from a long career in journalism, Mary H. Hollingsworth wrote an autobiographical novel.
Born in 1910 in Georgia, she attended the business school of the University of North Carolina. She became a reporter for the Durham Morning Herald in 1930 and continued a varied newspaper career in the Piedmont region of North Carolina until 1970.
Novel
How Long the Heart Remembers Houghton Mifflin 1977 * “The joys and hardships of family life in the North Georgia mountains form the basis for this autobiographical first novel….Though not an exciting novel, the nostalgic but honest approach makes pleasant reading.” –Library Journal
Main source: Contemporary Authors
What Library Journal called Robert Ross’s (1918-2003) first novel was actually his last. He turned to suspense fiction after taking early retirement from a career in advertising, but later dropped it and became a columnist.
Ross was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1918. His family later moved to New York and he attended City College of New York but did not graduate. He went to work in advertising, at agencies in New York, Paris, and Chicago. At the Leo Burnett agency, he created the Pillsbury Doughboy.
In his 1977 Library Journal article, Ross described the compulsion to write stories that had been with him since childhood. But his career as an author of published books began late. He retired in 1971 at age 53 and moved to the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean, where he co-authored three historical thrillers about the secret exploits of Leonardo DaVinci. In 1977, he published his first and only solo effort, a contemporary mystery about the antiques trade called A French Finish. It won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar award for Best First Novel, but the honor did not give impetus to Ross’s novel-writing career.
He returned to the U.S., settling in Hendersonville, North Carolina in 1980. He contributed to Advertising Age and wrote a weekly column for the Henderson Times-News called “Apple Country Almanac” until 2000. The newspaper, in its obit, said, “He filled the column with observations on local events, tidbits of humor and plugs for local cultural groups.”
Novels By Martin Woodhouse and Robert Ross:
Medici Guns Dutton 1974 Ballantine 1976*
Medici Emerald Dutton 1976 # Ballantine 1978*
Medici Hawks Dutton 1978 # Hodder & Stoughton 1980*
By Robert Ross:
A French Finish Putnam 1977 * “Light-hearted, romantic, and boundlessly silly”—Library Journal
Main sources: New York Times obit 12/26/03
“Community loses avid supporter” in Hendersonville Times-News 12/30/03
Michael Stewart (1924-1987) was a very successful Broadway writer who tried the novel only once.
A native New Yorker, he went to Queens College and the Yale School of Drama. He then went into sketch-writing for stage and television. He was on the legendary staff of Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows.” Other alumni included Neil Simon and Mel Brooks.
Then he went into musical theatre, and wrote the books for “Bye, Bye Birdie” and “Hello, Dolly!” among others. He won several Tony awards.
He told the New York Times that musical book writers are overshadowed by composers and lyricists: “I don’t know why any bright person would want to be a musical-book writer. You’re scorned by critics, you get no recognition from the public, and the money isn’t that good, either.”
It was interference from collaborators that made him want to write a novel, he told Publishers Weekly. “Belle” was a “combination of black comedy and Gothic Suspense” about a gay man who marries a princess only to learn she is already married—to Death.
He abandoned the novel and returned to writing for the stage. ( His sister had more of a taste for the form. She is Francine Pascal, who wrote the enormously successful Young Adult series “Sweet Valley High.”)
Novel
Belle Macmillan 1977* “The novel cackles convincingly but seldom chills.” –New York Times
Main source: New York Times obit Sept. 21, 1987
