Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen (born May 221927, in New York City) is an American novelist and nonfiction writer and an environmental activist. Matthiessen's work is known for its meticulous approach to research. He frequently focuses on American Indian issues and history, as in his detailed study of the Leonard Peltier case, "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse".

Career

Along with George Plimpton, Harold L. Humes, Thomas Guinzburg and Donald Hall, Matthiessen founded the literary magazine The "The Paris Review" in 1953. At the time he was a young recruit for the CIA. [cite news |first=Gina |last=McGee |title=The Burgeoning Rebirth of a Bygone Literary Star |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/books/13hume.html |publisher=New York Times |date=2007-01-13 |accessdate=2007-01-15 ]

In 1965, Matthiessen wrote a novel about a group of American missionaries and a South American tribe. The book was later made into a major Hollywood film with the same title, "At Play in the Fields of the Lord," in 1991. In 1979, Matthiessen's nonfiction book "The Snow Leopard" won the Contemporary Thought category of the National Book Award. His work on oceanographic research, "Blue Meridian," with photographer Peter A. Lake, documented the making of the film "Blue Water, White Death," which was directed by Peter Gimbel and Jim Lipscomb. This is widely considered to have inspired Peter Benchley to write "Jaws" in 1974.Fact|date=February 2008 Matthiessen has been the official State Author of New York, 1995-1997.

More recently, Matthiessen's fiction trilogy "Killing Mr. Watson", "Lost Man's River" and "Bone by Bone" was based on accounts of Florida planter Edgar J. Watson's death shortly after the Southwest Florida Hurricane of 1910.

"Crazy Horse" lawsuits

Shortly after the 1983 publication of "In The Spirit of Crazy Horse", Matthiessen and his publisher Viking Penguin were sued for libel by FBI agent David Price and former South Dakota governor William J. Janklow. The plaintiffs sought over $49 million in damages; Janklow also successfully sued to have all copies of the book withdrawn from bookstores. [cite news |first=Harold |last=Evans |title=The Long Arm of a Lawsuit Arrests History|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE3D9143BF932A15753C1A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1 |publisher=New York Times |date=1988-10-21 |accessdate=2008-08-19 ] After four years of litigation, Federal District Court Judge Diana E. Murphy dismissed Price's lawsuit, upholding Matthiessen's right "to publish an entirely one-sided view of people and events." [cite news |first=Herbert |last=Mitgang |title='Crazy Horse' Author Is Upheld in Libel Case|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0DA1F39F935A25752C0A96E948260 |publisher=New York Times |date=1988-01-16 |accessdate=2008-08-19 ] In the Janklow case, a South Dakota court also ruled for Matthiessen. Both cases were appealed. In 1990, the Supreme Court refused to hear Price's arguments, effectively ending his appeal; the South Dakota Supreme Court dismissed Janklow's case the same year. [cite news |first=Edwin |last=McDowell |title=Book Notes: 'Crazy Horse' Suit|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/11/specials/matthiessen-booknotes.html |publisher=New York Times |date=1990-01-10 |accessdate=2008-08-19 ] [cite news |first=Peter |last=Matthiessen |title=Who Really Killed the FBI Men: New Light on Peltier's Case|url=http://nativenet.uthscsa.edu/archive/nl/9407/0156.html |publisher=The Nation |date=1991-05-13 |accessdate=2008-08-20 ] With the lawsuits settled, the paperback edition of the book was finally published in 1992.

Personal life

In his book "The Snow Leopard", Matthiessen reports having a somewhat tempestuous on-again off-again relationship with his wife Deborah, culminating in a deep commitment to each other made shortly before she was diagnosed with cancer. She died in New York City near the end of 1972. She and Matthiessen had four children; the youngest of them, Alex Matthiessen, was 7 or 8 years old at the time of her death. In September of the following year, Matthiessen went on an expedition to the Himalayas with field biologist George Schaller.

Matthiessen and Deborah practiced Zen Buddhism. Matthiessen later became a Buddhist priest of the White Plum Asanga.Fact|date=February 2008 He lives in Sagaponack, New York.

Bibliography

Fiction

*"Race Rock" (1954)
*"Partisans" (1955)
*"Raditzer" (1961)
*"At Play in the Fields of the Lord" (1965)
*"Far Tortuga" (1975)
*"On the River Styx and Other Stories" (1989)
*"Killing Mister Watson" (1990)
*"Lost Man's River" (1997)
*"Bone by Bone" (1999)
*"Shadow Country" (2008) (a new rendering of the Watson trilogy)

Nonfiction

*"Wildlife in America" (1959)
*"The Cloud Forest: A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness" (1961)
*"Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in the Stone Age" (1962)
*"The Atlantic Coast", a chapter in "The American Heritage Book of Natural Wonders" (1963)
*"The Shorebirds of North America" (1967)
*" Oomingmak" (1967)
*"Sal Si Puedes: Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution" (1969)
*"Blue Meridian. The Search for the Great White Shark" (1971).
*"The Tree Where Man Was Born" (1972)
*"The Snow Leopard" (1978)
*"Sand Rivers" (1981)
*"In the Spirit of Crazy Horse" (1983) ISBN 0-14-014456-0
*"Indian Country" (1984)
*"Nine-headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982" (1986)
*"Men's Lives: The Surfmen and Bayen of the South Fork" (1986)
*"African Silences"(1991)
*"Baikal: Sacred Sea of Siberia" (1992)
*"East of Lo Monthang: In the Land of the Mustang" (1995)
*"The Peter Matthiessen Reader: Nonfiction, 1959-1961" (2000)
*"Tigers in the Snow" (2000)
*"The Birds of Heaven: Travels With Cranes" (2001)
*"End of the Earth: Voyage to Antarctica (2003)

References