Keith, Don 1947-

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KEITH, Don 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born 1947; married; wife's name Charlene. Education: University of Alabama, degree in broadcasting/film and literature.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Indian Springs Village, AL. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Forge Books, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER:

Radio broadcaster and novelist. Affiliated with Virginia College, Birmingham, Alabama, assisting in curriculum development; formerly a radio station co-owner, consultant, host and producer of nationally syndicated radio programs; also worked for Arbitron and Tapscan.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Alabama Library Association Fiction Award, 1997, for The Forever Season; awards from Associated Press and United Press International for news writing and reporting; Billboard magazine "Radio Personality of the Year" award in country and contemporary-music categories.

WRITINGS:

The Forever Season, St. Martin's Press/Wyatt (New York, NY), 1995.

Wizard of the Wind, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1997.

(With George Wallace) Final Bearing, Forge (New York, NY), 2003.

(With Ken Henry) Gallant Lady (nonfiction), Forge (New York, NY), 2004.

"ROLLING THUNDER" SERIES; WITH KENT WRIGHT

White Lightning, Tor (New York, NY), 1999.

First to the Flag, Tor (New York, NY), 2000.

Inside Pass, Tor (New York, NY), 2000.

On the Throttle, Tor (New York, NY), 2000.

Young Guns, Tor (New York, NY), 2000.

ADAPTATIONS:

White Lightning was adapted for audio cassette, read by Michael Skinner, DR Audio, 1999.

SIDELIGHTS:

A former radio broadcaster, Don Keith has written several novels and a history of the U.S.S. Archerfish, a submarine famed for its war and peacetime assignments. In his novels, Keith has written about football, broadcasting, and submarine missions. With coauthor Kent Wright, he has created the "Rolling Thunder" series of young adult novels about stock car racing.

Keith's first novel was The Forever Season, a story told from the afterlife by one C. P. McCay. Once a young talented football player who loved poetry, McCay thought he had escaped the nightmare of a childhood filled with violence and abuse when he attends a respected state university on a full athletic scholarship. Instead he finds himself surrounded by individuals who want something other than his athletic and academic best: a professor wants to sleep with him, the coach asks him to hurt an opponent, and his gambler father wants to know how games will turn out. While some critics found the quality of the novel uneven, Keith was commended for his writing. In Aethlon Christopher Brooks described The Forever Season as "an anti-parable of the talents, a showing of how virtue is no protection in the fallen world of corrupt coaches, coercive teachers, misguided university presidents, and mentally disturbed elders of every sort." A Kirkus Reviews writer said, "The football sequences in this novel [are as] good as any written, but a clumsy start and a wincingly bad end leave the book buried deep in its own end zone." Similarly, Library Journal's Will Hepfer remarked that "the middle of this tale is captivating, but a slow start and a weak ending will leave readers feeling cheated." In a review for Southern Scribe, Pam Kingsbury called Keith's prose "tight, wry, and vivid."

Fictionalizing the familiar territory of radio broadcasting in Wizard of the Wind, Keith shows two childhood friends who are pulled in opposite directions by their successful careers. A white orphan from Alabama, Jimmy Gill learns to love the radio and rock and roll in the 1950s, as does his black friend Detroit Simmons. Gill becomes a disc jockey, while Detroit takes to engineering. Their friendship is hurt after they become co-owners of a radio station and Gill accepts the financial help of drug dealers. A Publishers Weekly writer judged that Keith misses the mark with Wizard of the Wind: "All the ingredients are here for a great story, but Keith shows us far too much of Gill's corporate fall and not enough of the joy in his radio rise." The novel is a "cornpone sweet, rags-to-richesto-rags allegory," according to a Kirkus Reviews writer, who was disappointed that "trite melodrama buries what could have been a savvy insider tale." Conversely, Booklist's Brian McCombie commented that Keith takes "a compelling look at the personal costs of a seductive business."

The first book in Keith's "Rolling Thunder" series is White Lightning, which was also released on audio cassette. The story introduces Jodell Bob Lee, a dirt track driver who previously delivered moonshine for his grandfather. A Publishers Weekly critic remarked, "Read aloud, the tale has an irresistible hokey charm, diverting and entertaining in its free mix of fact and fiction."

The novel Final Bearing was co-written by Keith with retired naval commander George Wallace. A thriller about an American mission to derail South American drug lord Juan de Santiago, it focuses on the efforts of DEA agent Tom Kinkaid, Navy SEAL team leader Bill Beaman, and Commander Jonathan Ward of the aging submarine U.S.S. Spadefish. The action, including some bloody fighting, ranges from Seattle to Colombia to Washington, D.C., as Spadefish hopes to confront de Santiago on his own ship, backed by a crew determined to cap its career victoriously. Contrasting reviews came from a Kirkus Reviews writer, who deemed the novel "sub-par" and Booklist's Roland Green, who called it "above average for its salty breed."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Aethlon, spring, 1998, Christopher Brooks, review of The Forever Season, p. 205.

Booklist, December 1, 1996, Brian McCombie, review of Wizard of the Wind, p. 641; March 1, 2003, Roland Green, review of Final Bearing, p. 1148.

Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 1995, review of The Forever Season, pp. 883-884; November 15, 1996, review of Wizard of the Wind, p. 1623; February 1, 2003, review of Final Bearing, p. 178.

Library Journal, August, 1995, Will Hepfer, review of The Forever Season, p. 117.

Publishers Weekly, August 7, 1995, review of The Forever Season, p. 443; November 4, 1996, review of Wizard of the Wind, p. 63; July 5, 1999, review of White Lightning, p. 35.