Winston Groom

Winston F. Groom (born 1944) is an American novelist and non-fiction writer, best known for his book "Forrest Gump", which was adapted into a film in 1994.

Biography

Groom was born in Washington, D.C., but grew up in Mobile, Alabama where he attended University Military School (now known as UMS-Wright Preparatory School). Groom's first dream was to become a lawyer like his father but decided he wanted to become a writer when he was a literary editor at the University of Alabama. Groom attended the University of Alabama, where he was a member of Delta Tau Delta and the Army ROTC, and graduated in 1965. He served in the army from 1965 to 1969, including a tour of duty in the Vietnam War.

Upon his return from Vietnam, he worked as a reporter for the "Washington Star" which was a Washington D.C. newspaper that covered police and courtroom activities. Groom decided to quit his job as a journalist in 1976 and began writing his first novel "Better Times Than These" which was published in 1978. "Better Times Than These" was about a group of very partriotic soldiers in the Vietnam War who's lives are shattered by the war as well as their patriotism for it. Groom did not receive good recognition until his next novel "As Summers Die" (1980). His novel "Conversations with the Enemy" (1982) which was about an American soldier in the Vietnam War named Robert Garwood who escapes from a Vietnamese prison camp and takes a plane back to the United States only to be arrested fourteen years later in 1982 for desertion. "Conversations with the Enemy" was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1983.

In 1985, Groom moved back to Mobile, Alabama where he began to work on a novel which would become "Forrest Gump". "Forrest Gump" was published in 1986, however it did not make Groom a bestseller until 1994 and received only a little fame and critical acclaim. Despite all this the novel was adapted into a film with the same name in 1994 starring Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump. The film made the novel a bestseller and sold 1.7 million copies worldwide. Groom currently writes history books about American wars.

Recently he has lived in Point Clear, Alabama, and Long Island, New York, where he had lived earlier in his career, with his wife Anne Clinton. Groom was an old friend of writer Willie Morris, dating to their days together in Bridgehampton, Long Island, New York.

Works

Novels

*"Better Times Than These" (1978)
*"As Summers Die" (1980)
*"Conversations with the Enemy" (1982, with Duncan Spencer)
*"Only" (1984, novel)
*"Forrest Gump" (1986)
*"Gone the Sun" (1988)
*"Gump and Co." (1995)
*"Such a Pretty, Pretty Girl" (1998)

Nonfiction

*"Shrouds of Glory: From Atlanta to Nashville: The Last Great Campaign of the Civil War" (1995)
*"A Crimson Tide: An Illustrated History of Football at the University of Alabama" (2002)
*"A Storm in Flanders: The Triumph and Tragedy on the Western Front" (2002)
*"1942: The Year that Tried Men's Souls" (2004)
*"Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans" (2006)

External links

* [http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4380/Groom-Winston.html longer bio]
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0343165/ IMDB Groom web page]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109830/ IMDB Forrest Gump web page]
* [http://www.southernlitreview.com/authors/winston_groom.htm Southern Literary Review bio]
* [http://www.pritzkermilitarylibrary.org/events/2006-11-02-winstonGroom.jsp Interview] at the Pritzker Military Library
* [http://bamadelt.com/images/1965.jpgPicture of Groom in Delta Tau Delta]

References