Background
Wharton was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
(Hailed upon its publication as "a classic for readers not...)
Hailed upon its publication as "a classic for readers not yet born" (Philadelphia Inquirer), Birdy is an inventive, hypnotic novel about friendship and family, dreaming and surviving, love and war, madness and beauty, and, above all, "birdness." It tells the story of Al, a bold, hot-tempered boy whose goals in life are to life weights and pick up girls, and his strange friend Birdy, the skinny, tongue-tied perhaps genius who only wants to raise canaries and to fly. While fighting in World War II, they find their dreams become all too real—and their lives are changed forever. In Birdy, William Wharton crafts an unforgettable tale that suggests another notion of sanity in a world that is manifestly insane.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679734120/?tag=2022091-20
(A reissue of this classic World War II novel. Set in the ...)
A reissue of this classic World War II novel. Set in the Ardennes Forest on Christmas Eve, 1944, A Midnight Clear is the story of Sergeant Will Knott and five other GIs ordered to establish an observation post in an abandoned chateau close to the German lines. Here they play at being soldiers in what seems to be complete isolation-until the Germans begin leaving signs of their presence.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0007457995/?tag=2022091-20
( Set in the Ardennes Forest on Christmas Eve 1944, Serge...)
Set in the Ardennes Forest on Christmas Eve 1944, Sergeant Will Knott and five other GIs are ordered close to the German lines to establish an observation post in an abandoned chateau. Here they play at being soldiers in what seems to be complete isolation. That is, until the Germans begin revealing their whereabouts and leaving signs of their presence: a scarecrow, equipment the squad had dropped on a retreat from a reconnaissance mission and, strangest of all, a small fir tree hung with fruit, candles, and cardboard stars. Suddenly, Knott and the others must unravel these mysteries, learning as they do about themselves, about one another, and about the "enemy," until A Midnight Clear reaches its unexpected climax, one of the most shattering in the literature of war.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1557042578/?tag=2022091-20
Wharton was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
From "a poor, hard-working, Catholic family", he graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1943, and was inducted into the school"s Wall of Fame in 1997. I was scared, miserable, and I lost confidence in human beings, especially myself." After his discharge, he attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received an undergraduate degree in art and a doctorate in psychology, later teaching art in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
During World World War II, Wharton served in the United States Army and was first assigned to an engineering unit He was transferred to the infantry, and was severely wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. His memoirs included an account of his role in the killing of German prisoners during the war - "War for me, though brief, had been a soul-shaking trauma.
His first novel Birdy was published in 1978 when he was more than 50 years old.
Alan Parker directed a film version starring Nicolas Cage and Matthew Modine. After the publication of Birdy and through the early 1990s, Wharton published eight novels, including Dad and A Midnight Clear, both of which were also made into films, the former starring Jack Lemmon.
Wharton wrote a (mostly) non-fiction book, Ever After: A Father"s True Story (1995), which recounts the incidents leading to the accident, his family"s subsequent grief, and the three years which he devoted to pursuing redress in the Oregon court system for the field-burning that caused the accident. Houseboat on the Seine, a memoir, was published in 1996, about Wharton"s purchase and renovation of a houseboat.
lieutenant is worth noting that he gained an enormous and unusual popularity in Poland, where many extra editions as well as visits followed and eventually some works were prepared and published only in Polish (see the Bibliography).
Wharton died on 29 October 2008 of an infection that he contracted while hospitalized for blood-pressure problems.
(Hailed upon its publication as "a classic for readers not...)
( Set in the Ardennes Forest on Christmas Eve 1944, Serge...)
(A reissue of this classic World War II novel. Set in the ...)