David Morrell (born April 24, 1943) is a Canadian-American novelist, best known for his debut 1972 novel First Blood, which would later become the successful Rambo film franchise starring Sylvester Stallone.
School period
College/University
Gallery of David Morrell
St. Jerome's University, Waterloo, ON, Canada
In 1966, Morrell received his Bachelor of Arts in English from St. Jerome's University.
Gallery of David Morrell
The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States
After Morrell moved to the United States to study at Pennsylvania State University, where he would eventually receive his Master of Arts and Ph.D. in American literature.
Career
Gallery of David Morrell
1983
David Morrell on the movie set of the First Blood with Silvester Stallone.
Gallery of David Morrell
2018
David Morrell at Thriller Fest in New York.
Gallery of David Morrell
David Morrell (born April 24, 1943) is a Canadian-American novelist.
The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States
After Morrell moved to the United States to study at Pennsylvania State University, where he would eventually receive his Master of Arts and Ph.D. in American literature.
William Tenn was the pseudonym of Philip Klass (May 9, 1920 – February 7, 2010), a British-born American science fiction author, notable for many stories with satirical elements.
(Hunted by a powerful enemy, a man and his family flee the...)
Hunted by a powerful enemy, a man and his family flee their home and civilization. This thriller classic influenced many later thriller authors. It is not for the faint of heart.
(In 1916, Mexican bandit Pancho Villa raided the southwest...)
In 1916, Mexican bandit Pancho Villa raided the southwestern border town of Columbus. Three hundred American soldiers fought four hundred attackers in a battle that ended with one of the last cavalry charges in U.S. history. Outraged, Congress ordered the U.S. Army to invade Mexico in pursuit of Villa. For the first time, trucks and airplanes accompanied U. S. cavalry into combat, practicing for America’s entry into World War I.
(All Peter Houston wanted was to find the grave of the war...)
All Peter Houston wanted was to find the grave of the war-hero father he never knew and come to terms with the past. But after he traveled thousands of miles to a military cemetery in France, he discovered that his father’s grave didn’t exist. Now ruthless assassins hunt him through the cities of Europe as his private pilgrimage thrusts him into the shadowy aftermath of World War II and a deadly labyrinth of secrets and murder.
(They were orphans, Chris and Saul - raised in a Philadelp...)
They were orphans, Chris and Saul - raised in a Philadelphia school for boys, bonded by friendship, and devoted to a mysterious man called Eliot. He visited them and brought them candy. He treated them like sons. He trained them to be assassins. Now he is trying desperately to have them killed. Spanning the globe, here is an astonishing novel of fierce loyalty and violent betrayal, of murders planned and coolly executed, of revenge bitterly, urgently desired.
(In this sequel, Rambo is in prison for his one-man war ag...)
In this sequel, Rambo is in prison for his one-man war against a small-town police chief. His former commanding officer, Colonel Trautman, arrives with a promise to release him, with two conditions. First, Rambo must return to the Vietnamese prison camp from which he escaped and find the missing Americans rumored to be prisoners there. The second condition? Don’t rescue the prisoners. Only bring back photographs. Under no circumstances engage the enemy. For Rambo, the first part is difficult. But the second is impossible.
(Drew Maclane was a star agent until the day the killing h...)
Drew Maclane was a star agent until the day the killing had to stop. He withdrew and for six years lived the life of a hermit in a monastery. But someone has tracked him down, leaving a trail of corpses. Someone who knows all about him, who knows how to draw him back into that electrifying world where no one is as he seems, and where life's most horrifying and harrowing game is played.
(In this further adventure, Rambo is in exile far from hom...)
In this further adventure, Rambo is in exile far from home in Thailand, vowing to renounce violence and war. When his country calls him once again, he refuses to accept. But then he learns that his former commanding officer, Colonel Trautman, the only man he trusts, has been captured by the Soviets on the Afghan border during a mission that Rambo rejected.
(From the bestselling author of First Blood comes a specta...)
From the bestselling author of First Blood comes a spectacular thriller, in which a former Navy SEAL and a Japanese samurai master are bound together in a terrifying past that never happened.
(Fallen star journalist Matt Pittman holds a gun in his ha...)
Fallen star journalist Matt Pittman holds a gun in his hand, ready to commit suicide...until he's abruptly interrupted by a phone call and a bizarre assignment: to write the obituary of a man who is not yet dead. Suddenly, clinging desperately to a life he'd so recently been eager to discard, Matt is thrust into the heart of a global conspiracy whose sinister machinations promise a terrifying endgame. He will find himself both a murder suspect by the police and a target for murder by invisible assassins determined to destroy him.
(An American intelligence operative, Steve Decker suddenly...)
An American intelligence operative, Steve Decker suddenly moves to Santa Fe after a tragedy on his 40th birthday. There he finds peace of mind and a beautiful, sensual woman named Beth Dwyer. Steve will soon discover, however, that Beth harbors heinous secrets.
Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing: A Novelist Looks at His Craft
(Best-selling novelist David Morrell provides insights and...)
Best-selling novelist David Morrell provides insights and advice learned during thirty years of writing and selling novels - insider secrets that are sure to help writers achieve the next level of literary success, whether they're just beginning or already published! With captivating anecdotes and thoughtful discussion, Morrell explores the basics of the writing craft, from structure and character to dialogue and style, allowing readers to look into the mind of an internationally known best-selling novelist. He also examines how to get published, the business of writing and the steps for getting fiction translated into film.
(Morrell leads you through an adrenaline-charged NightScap...)
Morrell leads you through an adrenaline-charged NightScape of serial killers, third world revolutionaries, a policeman stalking a murderous cult, a son obsessed by his cryogenically frozen father, a psychology professor forced to suffer intense confinement, and a doctor combating an epidemic that he fears will destroy the world.
(On a cold October night, five people gather in a rundown ...)
On a cold October night, five people gather in a rundown motel on the Jersey shore to make preparations to break into a nearby abandoned hotel built by a reclusive millionaire during Asbury Park's golden days but the group of urban explorers, joined for the evening by a reporter, are unprepared for the danger, terror, and death awaiting.
(An unexplained attack on Saul’s village motivates him to ...)
An unexplained attack on Saul’s village motivates him to reenter the fray. It’s also what motivated Morrell to revisit a character he’d thought long gone. But what would a Brotherhood story be without the Abelard sanction?
(Since 1889, mysterious lights have appeared outside Rosto...)
Since 1889, mysterious lights have appeared outside Rostov, a remote Texas town. Ranchers believed them to be the campfires of rustlers, but campfires don’t rise and fall, merge, and change colors. In World War I, the locals believed that the lights came from German forces massing on the Mexican border. In the Second World War, the US military built an airfield there and used planes to try to discover the secret of the lights. In 1980, the entire town set out on a “Ghost Light Hunt.” For more than a century, each attempt to get close to the lights met with horrifying results. Now police officer Dan Page follows the trail of his missing wife from New Mexico to Texas and discovers that she and hundreds of spectators have become enraptured by the lights. After a crazed gunman fires obsessively into the crowd, the stage is set for more death. To save his wife, Page must confront the mystery of the lights. His desperate search reveals a government conspiracy that dates back to World War II. The abandoned airfield is more than what it seems. So is a nearby observatory, with a purpose even more mysterious and lethal than the lights themselves.
(Two brilliant operatives known as Saul and Drew are drawn...)
Two brilliant operatives known as Saul and Drew are drawn together to solve a baffling mystery: Why have ten elderly men from around the world been kidnapped? As the agents investigate they are pulled into a violent cycle of revenge that stretches back to World War II and is now forcing sons to pay for their father's darkest sins. David Morrell's international thrillers have no equal. From the Vatican to the Swiss Alps, from Australia to the heartland of America, The League of Night and Fog brings together two generations bound by one chilling legacy.
(Amid thousands of Christmas tourists in snowy Santa Fe, a...)
Amid thousands of Christmas tourists in snowy Santa Fe, a terrifying hunt is in progress. Wounded and on the run, spy Paul Kagan frantically seeks a haven for himself and a precious bundle he conceals under his coat. The bundle is a baby with the power to change the world. The pursuers are three ruthless enemies who will stop at nothing to get their hands on the child. When Kagan takes shelter in what seems to be a deserted home, he discovers an abandoned woman and her young son. As death lurks outside the house, these three unlikely allies prepare for a siege that will change their lives forever and perhaps the lives of millions of others.
(Once they were boyhood best friends, playing in the woods...)
Once they were boyhood best friends, playing in the woods near their homes, pretending to be soldiers surviving behind enemy lines. Grownup, they belonged to Delta Force and later worked as protectors for the world's best security company. Now their lives have taken drastically different paths, pitting them against one another, forcing them to play their boyhood game again, this time to learn who dies. The survival of a great city hangs in the balance as two friends-turned-enemies hunt one another and discover that there's a line between predators and prey, a line that's called The Naked Edge.
(In a remote valley in the dead of winter, a pioneer famil...)
In a remote valley in the dead of winter, a pioneer family encounters a pack of mysterious animals with uncommon ferocity and intelligence. As a blizzard worsens, the trap tightens until only a twelve-year-old girl holds the secret of survival.
(One of the great literary mysteries of the twentieth cent...)
One of the great literary mysteries of the twentieth century concerns J. D. Salinger. In the mid-1960s, the revered creator of The Catcher in the Rye suddenly stopped publishing and withdrew from public life. In David Morrell’s haunting “The Architecture of Snow,” an author similar to Salinger submits a manuscript after a four-decade absence. Why has he abruptly resurfaced? What caused his long-ago disappearance? When editor Tom Neal embarks on a search to a remote New England town, he uncovers the disturbing truth behind a tragic mystery that changes his life in unimaginable ways.
(From acclaimed thriller author David Morrell comes this t...)
From acclaimed thriller author David Morrell comes this tense, timely tale about counter-terrorism. An interrogator finds himself in a remote bunker and in an even more remote region of the human soul as he confronts the most hardened enemy he has ever faced and the most difficult choice he has ever been forced to make.
(No one knows his real name. No one knows where he lives. ...)
No one knows his real name. No one knows where he lives. Trained by Delta Force, calm in moments of absolute terror, Cavanaugh stops threats before they strike-silently, swiftly, and lethally. His latest assignment: protect a brilliant scientist with a secret so extraordinary he needs to disappear and adopt a new identity. For Cavanaugh, helping Daniel Prescott is just another job. Until it explodes, Prescott vanishes, and the protector finds himself in a fast, furious battle for his life.
(Thomas De Quincey, infamous for his memoir Confessions of...)
Thomas De Quincey, infamous for his memoir Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, is the major suspect in a series of ferocious mass murders identical to ones that terrorized London forty-three years earlier. The blueprint for the killings seems to be De Quincey's essay "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts." Desperate to clear his name but crippled by opium addiction, De Quincey is aided by his devoted daughter Emily and a pair of determined Scotland Yard detectives.
(He calls himself Cavanaugh. No first name and even “Cavan...)
He calls himself Cavanaugh. No first name and even “Cavanaugh” isn’t his actual last name. He’s a protector. His hatred of bullies compelled him to enlist in Special Forces. Now as a civilian, he operates Global Protective Services, the world’s finest security company. His goal: to keep predators from their prey. Following Cavanaugh’s missions in The Protector and The Naked Edge, Rambo-creator David Morrell presents three short stories that explore the psychology of a warrior compelled to risk his life for strangers.
(Thomas De Quincey, one of the most notorious and brillian...)
Thomas De Quincey, one of the most notorious and brilliant personalities of Victorian England. Along with his irrepressible daughter, Emily, and their Scotland Yard companions, Ryan and Becker, De Quincey finds himself confronted by an adversary who threatens the heart of the nation. This killer targets members of the upper echelons of British society, leaving with each corpse the name of someone who previously attempted to kill Queen Victoria. The evidence indicates that the ultimate victim will be Victoria herself. As De Quincey and Emily race to protect the queen, they uncover long-buried secrets and the heartbreaking past of a man whose lust for revenge has destroyed his soul.
(First came the man: a young wanderer in a fatigue coat an...)
First came the man: a young wanderer in a fatigue coat and long hair. Then came the legend, as John Rambo sprang from the pages of FIRST BLOOD to take his place in the American cultural landscape. This remarkable novel pits a young Vietnam veteran against a small-town cop who doesn't know whom he's dealing with - or how far Rambo will take him into a life-and-death struggle through the woods, hills, and caves of rural Kentucky.
(The railway has irrevocably altered English society, effe...)
The railway has irrevocably altered English society, effectively changing geography and fueling the industrial revolution by shortening distances between cities: a whole day's journey can now be covered in a matter of hours. People marvel at their new freedom. But train travel brings new dangers as well, with England's first death by train recorded on the very first day of railway operations in 1830.
(These stories alone are worth the price of admission, but...)
These stories alone are worth the price of admission, but Morrell also includes an introduction and fascinating, often highly personal story notes. Before I Wake is a thriller fan's dream, a rich, resonant collection that reminds us, once again, of its author's enduring and unmistakable importance. This is popular fiction as it should be written. It doesn't get better than this.
David Morrell is an American-Canadian writer and novelist. He is one of America's most popular and acclaimed storytellers, with over eighteen million copies of his books in print. His thrillers have been translated into twenty-two languages and turned into record-breaking films as well as top-rated TV miniseries. He is most famous for being the author of "First Blood," the novel in which Rambo was created.
Background
David Morrell was born on April 24, 1943, in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. His mother had difficulty raising a small child and holding down a full-time job without help, so she placed David in an orphanage and later in a series of boarding homes.
Education
In 1966, Morrell received his Bachelor of Arts in English from St. Jerome's University and moved to the United States to study at Pennsylvania State University, where he would eventually receive his Master of Arts and Ph.D. in American literature.
In 1960, at the age of seventeen, he became a fan of the classic television series, Route 66, about two young men in a Corvette traveling the United States in search of America and themselves. The scripts by Stirling Silliphant so impressed Morrell that he decided to become a writer.
In 1966, the work of another writer (Hemingway scholar Philip Young) prompted Morrell to move to the United States, where he met the distinguished fiction writer William Tenn (real name Philip Klass), who taught Morrell the basics of fiction writing. The result was First Blood, a novel about a returned Vietnam veteran suffering from post-trauma stress disorder who comes into conflict with a small-town police chief and fights his own version of the Vietnam War. That "father" of all modern action novels was published in 1972 while Morrell was a professor in the English department at the University of Iowa. He taught there from 1970 to 1986, simultaneously writing other novels, many of them national bestsellers, such as The Brotherhood of the Rose (the basis for a highly rated NBC miniseries starring Robert Mitchum). Eventually wearying of two professions, he gave up his tenure in order to write full time.
Shortly afterward, his fifteen-year-old son Matthew was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer and died in 1987, a loss that haunts not only Morrell's life but his work, as in his memoir about Matthew, Fireflies, and his novel Desperate Measures, whose main character has lost a son.
Noted for his research, he is a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School for wilderness survival as well as the G. Gordon Liddy Academy of Corporate Security.
Morrell has been trained in firearms, hostage negotiation, assuming identities, executive protection, and anti-terrorist driving, among numerous other action skills that he describes in his novels. With eighteen million copies in print, his work has been translated into twenty-six languages.
Morrell became an American citizen in 1993 and resided in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Morrell decided to become a writer at the age of 17, after being inspired by the writing in the classic television series Route 66.
Quotations:
"The key to writing action scenes (and every other kind of scene) is to make them multi-dimensional, which is another way of saying that I try to take the sense of sight for granted and then appeal to two other senses at the same time in a technique that John Barth calls "triangulation." Using these other senses makes the reader feel the scene rather than see it. The other technique I use is to ensure that the reader is oriented in terms of what's to the right and what's to the left, etc., to provide a sense of the space in which the action movies. Pacing is also an issue-how much detail to include and how much to leave out. The goal is to keep things moving, and if I've done my job correctly, the action scenes will seem to have been effortlessly written, even though they've been revised a hundred times."
“As much as I like it when a book I'm writing speeds along, the downside can be that an author becomes too eager to finish and rushes the end. The end is even more important than the first page, and rushing can damage it.”
“Before I start a project, I always ask myself the following question. Why is this book worth a year of my life? There needs to be something about the theme, the technique, or the research that makes the time spent on it worthwhile.”
“Sometimes life kicks you in the teeth with an irony that a self-respecting fiction writer would be ashamed to invent.”
“You have to follow your own voice. You have to be yourself when you write. In effect, you have to announce, 'This is me, this is what I stand for, this is what you get when you read me. I'm doing the best I can - buy me or not - but this is who I am as a writer.”
“Just because somebody smiles when he hands me a bag of shit, that doesn't mean I have to take it. I don't give a damn how friendly he is. It's what he does that matters.”
“What about God? The idea embarrassed him. It was only in moments of absolute fear that he had ever thought about God and prayed to him, always embarrassed because he did not believe and felt so hypocritical when he prayed out of fear, as if in spite of his disbelief there might be God after all, God who could be fooled by a hypocrite. When he was a child, then he believed. He certainly did believe when he was a child. How did it go, the nightly Act of Contrition? The words came hesitantly, unfamiliarly to him. Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for - For what?”
“Don't give in to doubt. Never be discouraged if your first draft isn't what you thought it would be. Given skill and a story that compels you, muster your determination and make what's on the page closer to what you have in your mind. The chances are that you'll never make them identical. That's one reason I'm still hitting the keyboard. Obsessed by the secrets of my past, I try to put metaphorical versions of them on the page, but each time, no matter how honest and hard my effort, what's in my mind hasn't been fully expressed, compelling me to keep trying. To paraphrase a passage from John Barth's "Lost in the Funhouse," I'll die telling stories to myself in the dark. But there's never enough time. There was never enough time.”
“It is impossible to determine precisely how many Victorians were dependent on the drug, but since millions used it on a daily basis, the number must have been considerable. The pallor of many women in the middle and upper classes, their frequent lack of appetite, their tendency to faint and to spend considerable time alone in dark rooms, the ornate patterns of over-upholstered and overfurnished rooms, the persistently closed, thick draperies - these are evidence of a national dependency that the restraints of Victorian society discouraged anyone from discussing.”
“Fasting is the only method of suicide permitted by the Catholic Church. All other ways imply despair, a distrust of God’s wisdom, an unwillingness to bear the hardships with which God tests his children. An absolute sin, suicide’s punishment is eternal damnation in the fires of Hell. But fasting is undertaken for the purpose of penance, meditation, and spiritual ecstasy. It purifies the spirit by denying the body. It brings a soul closer to God.”
Membership
Morrell is an honorary lifetime member of the Special Operations Association and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. Morrell is also a member and the co-president of the International Thriller Writers organization.
Personality
Morrell is an avid tennis player. In the summer, he loves working in our vegetable garden, enjoys reading, watching movies on DVD. He said that the research for his novels is also a wonderful form of entertainment, going out and learning to do the exciting things that he writes about.
Interests
gardening, reading, movies
Sport & Clubs
tennis
Connections
In 1987 Morrel lost his 15 year old son Matthew because of bone cancer. Today he lives with his wife and daughter Sarie in Santa Fe, New Mexico.