Evan Connell dies: Author penned book on Custer's Last Stand

Evan Connell dies: The acclaimed author of 'Son of the Morning Star' wrote over a dozen books. Evan Connell dies having written 'Mrs. Bridge' and 'Mr. Bridge,' about a Kansas City lawyer and his wife.

|
Courtesy of Counterpoint Press/AP
In this 1982 image provided by Counterpoint Press, author Evan S. Connell poses for a photo in Santa Fe, N.M.

U.S. writer Evan S. Connell, a versatile author whose widely acclaimed non-fiction account of Custer's Last Stand, "Son of the Morning Star," became a best seller, has died, his publisher said.

Connell, who lived and worked in Santa Fe, New Mexico, died late on Wednesday after several years of declining health, Counterpoint Press of Berkeley, California, said on its website.

A novelist, short-story writer and poet, Connell was the author of 17 books. His best-known novels were "Mrs. Bridge" (1959) and "Mr. Bridge" (1969), intersecting tales about the stunted lives of a Kansas City lawyer and his wife.

Washington Post reviewer Webster Schott called "Mr. Bridge" a "tour de force of contemporary American realism, a beautiful work of fiction."

The novels were made into a film in 1990, "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge," starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

Connell was perhaps best known for "Son of the Morning Star" (1984), about the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn in which Indian warriors wiped out Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his 250 men.

"More significant men of his time can be discussed without passion because they are inextricably woven into a tapestry of the past, but this hotspur refuses to die. He stands forever on that dusty Montana slope," he wrote.

"Son of the Morning Star" became a best seller, drew critical acclaim and was made into an ABC television mini-series. Time magazine named it one of the best books of the 1980s.

A writer who was hard to categorize, Connell also wrote about the life of a Navy pilot, which he had been in World War Two; medieval alchemy; the Crusades; and the inner life of a rapist.

In 2010 Connell was awarded the Robert Kirsch Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, for "a living author with a substantial connection to the American West, whose contribution to American letters deserves special recognition."

He was nominated in 2009 for the Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement.

Connell was born on Aug. 17, 1924, in Kansas City, Missouri, and attended Dartmouth College and the University of Kansas. He was also an alumnus of Stanford and Columbia universities.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Evan Connell dies: Author penned book on Custer's Last Stand
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0111/Evan-Connell-dies-Author-penned-book-on-Custer-s-Last-Stand
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe