Davis Grubb
Davis Grubb (1919-1980) was an American writer known for his diverse body of work that included gothic thrillers, historical romances, and socially conscious novels. Born in Moundsville, West Virginia, Grubb's early exposure to his family's rich regional heritage influenced his fiction, often drawing upon small-town settings and local characters. He embarked on his writing journey at a young age and achieved his first fiction sale in 1944, eventually contributing stories to notable publications like Good Housekeeping and The Saturday Evening Post.
Grubb gained significant acclaim for his novel "The Night of the Hunter" (1953), which was later adapted into a film by Charles Laughton. His writing often combined lyrical prose with elements of horror, and he frequently explored themes of community, race, and class. Throughout his career, Grubb published several collections and novels, including "A Dream of Kings" and "Fools' Parade," the latter of which was also adapted for film. Despite his passing shortly after completing another manuscript, Grubb's legacy endures through his impactful storytelling and the exploration of complex social issues in his work.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Davis Grubb
Author
- Born: July 23, 1919
- Birthplace: Moundsville, West Virginia
- Died: July 24, 1980
- Place of death: New York, New York
Biography
Davis Alexander Grubb was born on July 23, 1919, in Moundsville, West Virginia, a town situated near the Ohio River. He was the first child born to Louis Delaplain Grubb, an architect, and Eleanor Louise Alexander Grubb, a child welfare worker in the local Department of Public Assistance. His mother’s family had been established in the region for over two centuries, and their heritage and involvement in the community would provide Grubb with a great deal of raw material for his fiction. Grubb was educated at local public schools, and at the age of seven he became determined to become a writer.
In 1938, two years after his father’s death, he moved with his family to nearby Clarksburg and worked briefly at the local radio station, WBLK. He enrolled at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh to become an artist but dropped out in 1939 after being informed he was color-blind. Over the next four years he held a variety of jobs: He worked as a page for NBC in New York City and wrote copy and announced for a radio station in Florida. He wrote in his spare time, and he eventually sold a half hour radio play. His first fiction sale was to Good Housekeeping in 1944. Over the next decade he published pieces in a variety of markets, ranging from Collier’s, The Saturday Evening Post, and other prestigious slick-paper magazines to Weird Tales and other pulp periodicals.
Grubb wrote two kinds of tales: lyrical and historical treatments of the small towns and people whom he knew and tales of horror that had a regional flavor. A number of these would be gathered for Twelve Tales of Suspense and the Supernatural (1964), The Siege of 318 (1979), and You Never Believe Me, and Other Stories (1989). Several were dramatized for Alfred Hitchcock Presents and other television programs. Some of these stories were set in Cresap’s Landing, a fictional Ohio River Valley town whose name was derived from family on his mother’s side. This town also served as the backdrop for his first novel, The Night of the Hunter (1953), a gothic thriller that Grubb wrote in six weeks while working as a copywriter at a Philadelphia advertising agency. The book was well received and made into a memorable film by Charles Laughton in 1955. Grubb continued to write short fiction, but much of the rest of his writing career was devoted to novel-length work that ranged in theme and approach from A Dream of Kings (1955), a historical romance, to A Tree Full of Stars (1965), a semifantastic fable of small-town bigotry, and Shadow of My Brother (1966), a murder mystery with racial overtones. Grubb was also known for socially conscious novels of working class and county life, including The Voices of Glory (1962) and The Barefoot Man (1961). Another novel, Fools’ Parade (1969), was adapted for film and shot on location in Moundsville. Grubb lived in Louisiana from 1973 to 1976 before returning to Clarksville, West Virginia. He died on July 24, 1980, six weeks after turning in the manuscript of his eleventh novel, Ancient Lights (1982). At his death a Civil War novel, “The Scallop Shell,” remained unpublished.