Harrigan, Stephen 1948–

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Harrigan, Stephen 1948–

PERSONAL: Born Michael Stephen McLaughlin, October 5, 1948, in Oklahoma City, OK; son of James E. McLaughlin (a test pilot) and Marjorie (an educator in family planning) McLaughlin; adopted by Thomas F. Harrigan (an independent oil contractor); married Sue Ellen Line (a homemaker), September 6, 1975; children: Marjorie Rose, Dorothy, Charlotte. Education: University of Texas, B.A., 1971.

ADDRESSES: Home—Austin, TX. Agent—Esther Newberg, International Creative Management, 40 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer. Worked as a yardman and later as a freelance writer in Austin, TX; Texas Monthly, Austin, senior editor, 1983–91; freelance novelist, journalist, and screenwriter, 1991–; University of Texas—Austin, James A. Michener Center for Writers, Austin, TX, adjunct professor. Founding member, Capital Area Statues, Inc.

MEMBER: Texas Institute of Letters (former president), Philosophical Society of Texas.

AWARDS, HONORS: Dobie-Paisano fellow, 1977; National Endowment for the Arts grant in creative writing, 1979; New York Times notable book selection, 1980, for Aransas; selection as one of year's best books, Washington Post and Dallas Morning News, both 1984, both for Jacob's Well; Wrangler Award, National Cowboy Hall of Fame; Headliner's Award for year's best magazine article; "Salute to America's Authors" reader, inaugural ceremonies for President George W. Bush, 2001; New York Times notable book selection, 2000, Texas Book Award, Texas Christian University, Western Heritage Award, National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and Spur Award for the Best Novel of the West, all for Gates of the Alamo.

WRITINGS:

Aransas (novel), Knopf (New York, NY), 1980.

Jacob's Well (novel), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1984.

A Natural State: Essays on Texas (originally published in Texas Monthly), Texas Monthly (Austin, TX), 1988.

Water and Light: A Diver's Journey to a Coral Reef, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1992.

The Last of His Tribe (teleplay), Home Box Office (HBO), 1992.

Comanche Midnight (essay collection), University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 1995.

The O.J. Simpson Story (teleplay), Fox-TV, 1995.

The Gates of the Alamo (novel), Knopf (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Stephen Frink) Beauty of the Coral Reefs, Book Sales (New York, NY), 2000.

Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder (teleplay), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 2000.

Beyond the Prairie II: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder Continues (sequel to Beyond the Prairie), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 2002.

King of Texas (teleplay), TNT, 2002.

The Colt (teleplay), Hallmark Channel, 2005.

Challenger Park (novel), Knopf (New York, NY), 2006.

Author of teleplays for television series, including an episode of the Ned Blessing series, as well as for television movies, including Smoke Jumpers, 1996, In the Line of Duty, 1997, Their Second Chance, 1997, A Wing and a Prayer, 1998, Cleopatra, 1999, Take Me Home: The John Denver Story, 2000, Murder on the Orient Express, 2001, and Widow on the Hill, 2005. Also author of screenwriting assignments, including Sister Walks Ahead, The Donner Party, Huey Long, and Rin Tin Tin. Contributor of articles to periodicals, including Atlantic, Esquire, Travel Holiday, New Yorker, Audubon, Life, and Outside. Author of introduction to Contemporary Texas: A Photographic Portrait, edited by Martha A. Sandweiss, Roy Flukinger, and Anne W. Tucker, Texas Monthly (Austin, TX), 1986, and La Vida Brinca: A Book of Tragaluz Photographs, written by William D. Witliff, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 2006; author of foreword to Alamo Traces, written by Thomas Ricks Lindley, Taylor Trade Publishing (Boulder, CO), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Stephen Harrigan's first novel, Aransas, chronicles the story of Jeff Dowling, who returns to his hometown of Port Aransas, Texas, after an eleven-year absence to help run a dolphin circus. Dowling comes home primarily because, according to Village Voice critic John Calvin Batchelor, he "just wanted to live in the world again" after years of drifting through life as a disaffected refugee from the counterculture of the early 1970s. While working with the dolphins, Dowling notices he shares certain personality traits with them, and he eventually becomes infatuated with the aquatic mammals. "Like them, Jeff feels but seems unable to express emotions," Nancy Naglin noted in the Chicago Tribune Books. She added, "The dolphins, Wanda and Sammy, slowly kindle the curiosity, passion, and sense of commitment that an oddly jaded Jeff Dowling lacks."

Critics praised Aransas for its realism and for Harrigan's characterization of Wanda and Sammy. In the New York Times Book Review, Michael Malone described Harrigan's successful authenticity: "That we believe and share Jeff's feelings is the quiet accomplishment of [Aransas]." Newsweek contributor Walter Clemons lauded Harrigan for giving "his porpoises such distinct personalities," and he labeled Aransas "an elegant debut" and "solidly convincing." In addition, the reviewer stated that "the sureness and poise of this first novel are as remarkable as the sharpness, oddity and clarity of its feelings." Although Batchelor believed Harrigan's descriptions "continually [threaten] to overpower his drama," he called the book a "fine first novel" and its author "literate and clever."

Harrigan's second novel, Jacob's Well, revolves around an artesian well and, like Aransas, takes place in Texas. When geologist Sam Marsh and his wife, Libby, separate after the death of their young son, Libby becomes involved with Rich Trammel, a professional diver who is fascinated by the well. He introduces both Libby and Sam to the well's mysteries, and the three of them explore its passage together. In the Washington Post Book World Dennis Drabelle pointed out that the novel's plot—"the combination of love triangle plus outdoor adventure"—may be "staple," but that "Harrigan … makes every page of his book seem new…. Reading Jacob's Well is a pleasure of the first magnitude."

Harrigan took on a Texas legend with his novel The Gates of the Alamo, published in 2000. The 1836 battle of the Alamo, a mission-turned-fort near San Antonio, Texas, is one of the legendary events in American history. It occurred during Texas's struggle to break free from Mexico when it was still part of that country. Larger-than-life figures such as Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie were on the scene, and they have their place in The Gates of the Alamo. The author brings out their human flaws while still treating them with respect, according to numerous reviewers. The major players in The Gates of the Alamo come from Harrigan's imagination, however. They include Edmund McGowan, an American botanist commissioned by the Mexican government to study plant life in Texas; Mary Mott, a widowed innkeeper; and her teenaged son, Terrell Mott. When a young woman pregnant with Terrell's child commits suicide, the emotionally distraught youth runs off, to be pursued by his mother and McGowan. These three find themselves trapped in the conflict at the Alamo. "Putting their stories in the foreground, Harrigan makes us care afresh about the tale, even as he debunks the mythology around it," declared Malcolm Jones in Newsweek. Crediting Harrigan with "masterly storytelling" that creates a "peppery revisionist look" at the famed conflict, Jones concluded, "The result is a genuinely moving epic and, paradoxically, unforgettable Alamo." Library Journal reviewer A.J. Anderson also applauded the novel, claiming Harrigan "proves that a more-than-twice-told tale can be made fresh and immediate."

Harrigan has also written numerous teleplays, produced by a wide range of television and cable channels, including HBO, TNT, and CBS. He adapted, for example, William Shakespeare's King Lear for the 2002 production King of Texas, earning praise from Hollywood Reporter contributor Barry Garron for his "bold and brilliant screenplay."

In 2006 Harrigan returned to novels with Challenger Park, about a female astronaut torn between her domestic responsibilities as a wife and mother and her dreams of flying in space. Lucy Kincheloe tries to balance raising her two children and training to be an astronaut. Her husband Brian is a former astronaut, now grounded. Picked to fly on the next shuttle mission, Lucy is attracted to her trainer for the mission, Walt Womack, while her husband broods over his failed career. Finally launched into space, Lucy is not prepared for what awaits her in this "intimate and soulful novel," as Library Journal reviewer Ron Samul described it. Mike Shea, writing in the Texas Monthly, had high praise for the same work, calling it a "finely nuanced novel," as well as "incomparable twenty-first-century fiction from one of Texas's great authors." Booklist contributor Allison Block further commended Challenger Park, observing that Harrigan "deftly portrays … the formidable but flawed individuals who risk everything to realize their dreams."

Harrigan once told CA: "I make my living as a journalist, and I've come to realize over the years that that's not a bad profession for a novelist. (Being a novelist, we may assume, is rarely much of a profession in itself.) My novels are filled with scraps of information and otherwise useless detail I picked up while reporting articles, so I am warmly disposed toward journalism. Fiction, I think, requires a deeper sensibility, an eagerness to deal with information that is murky and half-understood and often disturbing. But it is information nonetheless, and in that sense a novelist's work, like a journalist's, must begin with facts."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1992, review of Water and Light: A Diver's Journey to a Coral Reef, p. 1742; January 1, 2000, Brad Hooper, review of The Gates of the Alamo, p. 834; March 1, 2006, Allison Block, review of Challenger Park, p. 60.

Daily Variety, May 30, 2002, Michael Speier, review of King of Texas, p. 8.

Entertainment Weekly, September 30, 1994, Lisa Schwarzbaum, "Rewriting the Case on O.J.," p. 18.

Hollywood Reporter, May 31, 2002, Barry Garron, review of King of Texas, p. 20; March 15, 2003, Ray Richmond, review of Beyond the Prairie II: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder Continues, p. 19.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2006, review of Challenger Park, p. 149.

Library Journal, March 1, 1980, Robert H. Donahugh, review of Aransas, p. 636; April 15, 1984, review of Jacob's Well, p. 823; June 15, 1995, Vicki L. Toy Smith, review of Comanche Midnight, p. 81; February 15, 2000, A.J. Anderson, review of The Gates of the Alamo, p. 196; April 1, 2006, Ron Samul, review of Challenger Park, p. 82.

Newsweek, April 21, 1980, Walter Clemons, review of Aransas, p. 98; March 13, 2000, Malcolm Jones, review of The Gates of the Alamo, p. 64.

New Yorker, August 31, 1992, review of Water and Light, p. 104.

New York Times Book Review, June 15, 1980, Michael Malone, review of Aransas, p. 15; May 6, 1984, Richard Smith, review of Jacob's Well, p. 26; August 31, 1986, Patricia T. O'Conner, review of Aransas, p. 20; October 2, 1988, Harry Middleton, review of A Natural State: Essays on Texas, p. 27; May 31, 1992, Francine Prose, review of Water and Light, p. 32; March 12, 2000, Robert Houston, review of The Gates of the Alamo, p. 18.

Publishers Weekly, January 25, 1980, review of Aransas, p. 326; February, 1984, review of Jacob's Well, p. 126; August 15, 1986, John Mutter, review of Aransas, p. 79; April 6, 1992, review of Water and Light, p. 45; May 22, 1995, review of Comanche Midnight, p. 53; January 17, 2000, review of The Gates of the Alamo, p. 41; March 20, 2000, "Knopf's Doubleheader," p. 21, and Roger Gathman, "Stephen Harrigan: Re-visioning the Alamo," p. 66.

Texas Monthly, August, 1994, Anne Dingus, "Freshly Squeezed: A Texas Writer Dashes off an O.J. TV-Movie Quickie," p. 62; April, 2006, Mike Shea, review of Challenger Park, p. 56.

Tribune Books, April 27, 1980, Nancy Naglin, review of The Gates of the Alamo.

Variety, March 23, 1992, Van Gordon Sauter, review of The Last of His Tribe, p. 32.

Village Voice, April 7, 1980, John Calvin Batchelor, review of Aransas.

Washington Post Book World, May 6, 1984, Dennis Drabelle, review of Jacob's Well.

Whole Earth Review, spring, 1995, Tom Valtin, review of Water and Light, p. 113.