The Award Winning Biography
(MidAmerica Award of 1998)New Centennial Edition of Shade of the Raintree -
The Life and Death of Ross Lockridge, Jr., author of Raintree County.via IU Press! Order Here: "In this powerfully narrated biography, Larry Lockridge uncovers a man of great vitality, humor, love, and visionary ambition, but also of deep vulnerability. The author manages to combine a son's emotional investments with a sleuth's dispassionate inquiry. The result is an exhilarating, revelatory narrative of an American writer's life. With a new preface by the author, this 2014 paperback edition marks 100 years since the birth of Ross Lockridge, Jr." --IU Press
To other writings by Larry Lockridge
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Ross Lockridge, Jr. at the Old Home Place, Henry County, Indiana, in the summer of 1946. Lockridge returned to his ancestral home at the request of Life magazine, which was considering a feature article. Instead, an excerpt from Raintree County appeared in Life on September 8, 1947. This photograph and others, by Jeff Wylie of Time-Life, were never published. To more photos
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Pictured below is the dust jacket, 1st 1994 Viking Edition:
Viking, 500p
ISBN 0-670-85440-9
Shade of the Raintree
by Larry Lockridge "Larry Lockridge has written what in my faith we call a Kaddish, for his father and for his mother, too, beautiful and memorable." Herman Wouk
Front jacket photograph: Ross Lockridge, Jr. with his family in August of 1946, shortly after his prodigious novel, Raintree County, had been accepted for publication and eighteen months before his suicide. Courtesy of Indiana Alumni Magazine.
Book Review Comments and Acclaim for Shade of the Raintree
Writings from Shade of the Raintree
Other Writings by Larry Lockridge
Riots and Romantics: Larry Lockridge on the Eve of Retirement, by Peter Tasca, 2015
Book Reviews, Comments and Acclaim "Larry Lockridge has produced a major work on depression: a superb analytic description of clinical depression as it was understood vaguely in 1948 and more fully today. At the same time, he describes a great American tragedy . . . An immensely moving book, deserving of the Pulitzer Prize . . ." Donald Newlove, Kirkus Reviews
An utterly engaging biography. Larry Lockridge has the same ancestral powers of narration which distinguished his dazzling, lost father." Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List
"It is clear that Shade of the Raintree is [like Raintree County] destined to become an American classic . . . The best thing about [this biography] is that it sees nothing in idealism to ridicule; Larry Lockridge can make us feel it the way his father did." Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe
"One senses that the-novelist would be proud of his son: he has created a full portrait of life in the Midwest between the wars and of the collision of depression and the creative mind." Publisher's Weekly
Shade of the Raintree "is a book whose stirring power and complexity would daunt any reviewer. . . If it were up to me, I'd give this book all the awards and literary rosettes that Raintree County should have received . . ." Donald Newlove, The Philadelphia Inquirer
"A dramatic account of his father's life. . . We get a large portrait of a sophisticated artist . . . In the son's account the father's experience seems both harrowing and inevitable. . . What impresses you is the sense of reconciliation the son conveys." Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
"In his breakdown and collapse Ross Lockridge, Jr. comes fully alive on the page." Scott Donaldson, Washington Post
"A reading experience at once moving, candid, and hypnotic." Charles Lee, WFLN, Philadelphia
"Unflinchingly, Larry Lockridge [has] created a biography that is also a searching clinical study of depression; a remarkably objective essay in literary criticism; an important contribution to rural American history; and, finally, a magnificent and compassionate act of forgiveness." Tim Page, Newsday
"In the annals of 20th-century American literature, there may be no act more puzzling than [the suicide of Ross Lockridge, Jr.]." Shade of the Raintree is "a book that-is, in its own way, as remarkable and compelling as Raintree County. Larry Lockridge . . . has produced a wonderful hybrid: a solid, dispassionate biography that is at the same time a tender and understanding homage." Roger Miller, Milwaukee Journal
Larry Lockridge "is a lively, witty writer, who manages to find irreverent humor even in the aftermath of his father's suicide." John Blades, Chicago Tribune
Larry Lockridge "would not have wanted his father to have written a less ambitious book, nor to have given up the great egoism, which was also a great generosity, to have striven less high." Erika Duncan, The New York Times
"A son's moving attempt to come to grips with his father's legacy as a man and an artist." Wendy Smith, Chicago Sun Times
"Shade of the Raintree is a riveting book, shattering and shot through with the powerful poignancy of a life undone. I have read my copy twice through already, and will turn to it again and again, as I read and reread Raintree County. . ." Robin Mather, Detroit News
"Beyond any other standard, I tend to judge the quality of the biographies I read by the sense of loss I feel at the death of the subject. In this vein, I have seldom been moved more deeply than I was by Shade of the Raintree . . ." J. Kent Calder, Traces magazine.
"Out of this tragedy, [Larry Lockridge] has fashioned a touching, insightful and affectionate biography. It reveals much about his gifted father, his father's extraordinary family, and a vanished, almost idyllic world--that of the Indiana heartland in the years between World war I and World War II. . . This finely wrought, finely researched, moving and loving biography succeeds on all counts." Pauline Mayer, Cleveland Plain Dealer.
"The republication of Raintree County and the publication of Shade of the Raintree are indeed the most important literary publications of 1994." David Anderson, Center for the Study of Midwestern Literature and Culture
A son's "brave and unflinching attempt to understand his father's pain, while restoring his father's dream." Richard Bausch, Los Angeles Times
Writings Selected from Shade of the Raintree:
Contents and Selected Passages
Introduction, from Epilogue, pp. 3-5.
On the movie, from Epilogue, pp. 15--17.
Dream of the Flesh of Iron, pp. 183-90.
Author in the Epic, pp. 271--309
Raintree County and myth, 292-7Other Writings by Larry Lockridge:
Larry Lockridge's Response to Ernest Lockridge
Expanded Synopsis on Ross Lockridge, Jr. for DML Vol. 2
Least Likely Suicide: The Search for My Father, Ross Lockridge, Jr.
Biography and Enigma: The Case of Ross Lockridge, Jr.
Other Books & Writings By Larry Lockridge
Back to Top Back to Raintree County's Home Page The Novel Essays Other Writings RL Jr. Writer's Award Complete Contents Book Orders The Biography Photos / Postcards RC Source & Facsimiles Suicide & Prevention Movie & Score Site managed by RIII Web Page design by henley/graphics Page last updated: Sept. 23, 2016 http://www.raintreecounty.com
