Gary Jennings

Gary Jennings is a well-known author of epic historical novels, each one set in a different period but all sharing the theme of survival by wit and chance in violent times. These sprawling works, sometimes reaching 500,000 words, are packed with violence, braggadocio and vivid sex scenes. Gary Jennings usually structures his historical novels around a narrator who comes of age in the vicissitudes of the story and then takes his or her life lessons into an adulthood fraught with danger and sexual escapade. Carefully researched and possessing a wealth of period detail, Gary Jennings's novels have earned him praise as "a historical novelist of the first order," according to Christian H. Moe in Twentieth-Century Historical Writers. Born September 20, 1928, in Buena Vista, Virginia; son of Glen Edward (a printer) and Vaughnye May (Bays). Education: Gary Jennings attended little formal school after graduating from Eastside High School (of Lean on Me fame) in Paterson, New Jersey, and was mostly self-educated thereafter. Copywriter and account executive for advertising agencies, New York City, 1947-58; newspaper reporter in California and Virginia, 1958-61 Military: U.S. Army, Infantry, 1952-54; served as correspondent in Korea; awarded Bronze Star, citation from Republic of Korea Ministry of Information. Member of PEN International, Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Screenwriters Guild, Pocaliers Club. Gary Jennings died February 13, 1999, in Pompton Lakes, NJ