| George V. Higgins |
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LIFE & CAREER Higgins was born in Brockton, Massachusetts , attended Boston College . He later received a MA degree from Stanford in 1965, and a law degree from Boston College in 1967. He was married twice, first to Elizabeth Mulkerin Higgins (divorced 1979); second to Loretta Cubberley Higgins. Higgins worked as a Boston district attorney and a journalist and newspaper columnist before becoming a novelist. He wrote for the Associated Press , the Boston Globe , the Boston-Herald American , and the Wall Street Journal . He spent seven years in anti-organized crime government positions, including Assistant U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts . He entered the private practice of law in 1973, and was active for ten years. During those years he represented Eldridge Cleaver and G. Gordon Liddy . He was a professor at Boston College and Boston University . WRITING Higgins was noted as a stylist, and particularly noted for his realistic dialog. Roderick MacLeish said in ''Washington Post Book World'' that "the plot of a Higgins novel – suspense, humor and tragedy – is a blurrily perceived skeleton within the monsoon of dialogue." (quoted in ''Contemporary Authors'', New Revision Series, vol. 51, 213). Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote that '' The Friends Of Eddie Coyle '' was "one of the best of its genre I have read since Hemingway's '' The Killers ''. Coyle is a struggling mid-level broker in Boston's illegal gun trade, but there is nothing glamorous about his life." (quoted in the Marling article, see the External links section). Roderick MacLeish in the '' Times Literary Supplement '' wrote: "Like Joyce, Higgins uses language in torrents, beautifully crafted, ultimately intending to create a panoramic impression." (also quoted in ''Contemporary Authors'', New Revision Series, vol. 51, 213.) "He was an exceptional, perhaps the exceptional, postwar American political novelist," said Lord Grey Gowrie, chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain. (quoted in the USC HIggins collection article, see the external links section) Many of Higgins's works focus on the criminal element and the cops that pursue them, in and around Boston. The four Jerry Kennedy books form a connected series, but characters important in some of his books often are mentioned in other books, usually in passing but significant references. This is true of ''Trust'', ''Outlaws'', ''Bomber's Law'' and the Kennedy books, and perhaps others. In many cases much of the text of a Higgens book consists of dialog, often discursive and apparently rambling, from which the plot must be teased out by the reader. PUBLISHED WORKS Novels
Collection
Non Fiction Politics
Baseball
Writing
EXTERNAL LINKS
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