Ward Swift Just (September 5, 1935 – December 19, 2019) was an American writer. He was a war correspondent and the author of 19 novels and numerous short stories.

Biography

Just was born in

Michigan City, Indiana Michigan City is a city in LaPorte County, Indiana, United States. It is one of the two principal cities of the Michigan City-La Porte, Indiana Metropolitan statistical area, which is included in the Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City Combined sta ...

, attended

Lake Forest Academy Lake Forest Academy (also known as LFA) is a co-educational college preparatory school for boarding and day students in grades 9 through 12. The school is located on the North Shore in Lake Forest, Illinois, United States, about 30 miles north o ...

, and subsequently graduated from the Kingswood School (today

Cranbrook Kingswood School (''In The Right Way Quickly'') , established = , closed = , type = Independent , religious_affiliation = Methodist , president = , head_label = Headmaste ...

) in 1953. He briefly attended

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

in Hartford, Connecticut. He started his career as a print journalist for the '' Waukegan (Illinois) News-Sun''. He married three times and had three children. Just died of complications from

Lewy body dementia Lewy body dementias are two similar and common subtypes of dementia—dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD). Both are characterized by changes in thinking, movement, behavior, and mood. The two conditions have sim ...

Plymouth, Massachusetts Plymouth (; historically known as Plimouth and Plimoth) is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. Located in Greater Boston, the town holds a place of great prominence in American history, folklore, and culture, and is known as ...

, on December 19, 2019. He was 84 years old.

War correspondent

Just covered the war in

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

(1957) and the conflict in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...

for ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

''. Then Benjamin Bradlee hired Just at ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' as a war correspondent for the

Vietnam war The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. He published close to 400 articles, many appearing on the front page. He met journalist Frances Fitzgerald at a party soon after her arrival in

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in early 1966 and began a relationship with her that continued until she left

South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...

in November 1966. He was wounded on 8 June 1966 covering Operation Hawthorne, but returned to Saigon for a second tour after recovering in

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Leaving Saigon in May 1967, he wrote " To What End: Report from Vietnam," credited as being an important element in helping the nation understand the futility of that war. He went on to cover the presidential campaigns of both Eugene McCarthy and

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

for the ''Post'' in 1968 and was then asked to join its editorial board.

Fiction writing

Just's influences included

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

and

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

. His novel ''An Unfinished Season'' was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005. His novel ''Echo House'' was a finalist for the

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

in 1997. He was twice a finalist for the

O. Henry Award The O. Henry Award is an annual American award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American short-story writer O. Henry. The ''PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories'' is an annual collection of the year's twenty best ...

, in 1985 for his short story ''About Boston,'' and again in 1986 for his short story ''The Costa Brava, 1959.'' He was Spring 1999

Rome Prize The Rome Prize is awarded by the American Academy in Rome, in Rome, Italy. Approximately thirty scholars and artists are selected each year to receive a study fellowship at the academy. Prizes have been awarded annually since 1921, with a hiatus ...

fellow. His fiction is often concerned with the influence of national politics on Americans' personal lives. Much of it is set in Washington, D.C., and foreign countries. Another common theme is the alienation felt by Midwesterners in the East. According to ''Washington Post'' book critic

Jonathan Yardley Jonathan Yardley (born October 27, 1939) was the book critic at ''The Washington Post'' from 1981 to December 2014, and held the same post from 1978 to 1981 at the ''Washington Star''. In 1981, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Bac ...

, Just's finest novels are ''A Family Trust'', ''An Unfinished Season,'' ''Exiles in the Garden,'' and ''American Romantic.'' He also lists Just's short story collection, ''The Congressman Who Loved Flaubert,'' as one of his favorite books. Yardley recently wrote that "''American Romantic'' may well be the best of them all." In a column at

Literary Hub Literary Hub is a daily literary website that launched in 2015 by Grove Atlantic president and publisher Morgan Entrekin, American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame editor Terry McDonell, and Electric Literature founder Andy Hunter. Conte ...

in 2018, Susan Zakin wrote that "Ward Just is not merely America’s best political novelist. He is America’s greatest living novelist. To our discredit, he’s also America’s Greatest Unknown Novelist." In May 2013, The

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

at its annual induction and award ceremony inducted Ward Just as a new member of the Academy and honored his lifetime achievement in the field of Literature, along with an exhibition of his manuscripts.

Works

Novels

*''A Soldier of the Revolution'' (1970) *''Stringer'' (1974) *''Nicholson at Large'' (1975) *''A Family Trust'' (1978) *''In the City of Fear'' (1982) *''The American Blues'' (1984) *''The American Ambassador'' (1987) *''Jack Gance'' (1989) *''The Translator'' (1991) *''Ambition & Love'' (1994) *''Echo House'' (1997) *''A Dangerous Friend'' (1999) *''The Weather in Berlin'' (2002) *''An Unfinished Season'' (2004) *''Forgetfulness'' (2006) *''Exiles In The Garden'' (2009) *''Rodin's Debutante'' (2011) *''American Romantic'' (2014) *''The Eastern Shore'' (2016)

Story collections

*''The Congressman Who Loved Flaubert'' (1973) *''Honor, Power, Riches, Fame, and the Love of Women'' (1979) *''Twenty-one: Selected Stories'' (1990) *'' Lowell Limpett and Two Stories'' (2001)

Nonfiction

*''To What End'' (1968) *''Military Men'' (1970)

Plays

*''Lowell Limpett'' (2001)

Anthologized in

*''Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1959–1969 (Part One)'' (1998)

References

External links

Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

br>author page for Ward JustPerseus Books Group author page for Ward JustWard Just's Washington
by Michael Nelson, published in

The Virginia Quarterly Review The ''Virginia Quarterly Review'' is a quarterly literary magazine that was established in 1925 by James Southall Wilson, at the request of University of Virginia president E. A. Alderman. This ''"National Journal of Literature and Discussion" ...

Brief biography with links to book excerpts
from the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

series ''Reporting America At War'' produced by Insignia Films and WETA
Interview, online at CBC Words at Large (audio)Ward Just Papers in Cranbrook Archives, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Just, Ward 1935 births 2019 deaths American male journalists 20th-century American novelists American short story writers Lake Forest Academy alumni Cranbrook Educational Community alumni Newsweek people People from Michigan City, Indiana People from Waukegan, Illinois The Washington Post people Novelists from Illinois Novelists from Indiana James Fenimore Cooper Prize winners 21st-century American novelists American male novelists American male short story writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Deaths from dementia in Massachusetts Deaths from Lewy body dementia Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters