James D. Houston
James D. Houston was an American novelist and social historian, born on November 10, 1933, in San Francisco, California. Raised in Saratoga, he developed a passion for writing early in life, influenced by his mother’s introduction to literature. After initially attending Abilene Christian College on a football scholarship, he transferred to San Jose State College, where he earned a degree in journalism. Following a service as an Information Officer in the U.S. Air Force, Houston pursued a master's degree in American literature at Stanford University.
Houston's literary career is marked by a focus on contemporary California life, with notable works like "Love Life" and "Continental Drift," both of which examine personal and emotional struggles. He gained recognition for his collaboration with his wife, Jeanne Wakatsuki-Houston, on "Farewell to Manzanar," a significant account of Japanese American internment during World War II. Houston also authored "Snow Mountain Passage," which reflects on the tragic history of the Donner party, highlighting themes of survival and cultural conflict. His later work, "Bird of Another Heaven," explores the experiences of a Hawaiian woman during the gold rush. Throughout his career, Houston's writing has been characterized by a compassionate examination of diverse human experiences and the complexities of cultural intersections.
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Subject Terms
James D. Houston
- Born: November 10, 1933
- Birthplace: San Francisco, California
- Died: April 16, 2009
- Place of death: Santa Cruz, California
Biography
James D. Houston was born on November 10, 1933, in San Francisco, California. He grew up in Saratoga, near San Jose, however, because his parents, who had migrated from rural Texas during the Depression, found the Santa Clara Valley more reminiscent of the Texas open country. Early on, Houston’s mother introduced her son to books, initially to the Bible but eventually to classic American literature—Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Mark Twain.
Before he headed to Abilene Christian College on a football scholarship, Houston knew he wanted to write. He stayed in Texas only a year before returning to San Jose State College (later San Jose State University), where he graduated in journalism in 1956. After a three-year tour of duty as an Information Officer in the U.S. Air Force (during which he won a short story contest) and a brief stint in Europe, Houston returned to California to complete a master’s degree in American literature at Stanford University.
While holding a succession of teaching positions, Houston completed a series of novels about life in contemporary California, most notably Love Life, told by a thirtyish woman facing the trauma of divorce, and Continental Drift, about a dysfunctional family who live along the San Andreas Fault. Encouraged by the critical response to his domestic realism, his ear for dialogue, and his compassionate examination of characters under emotional pressures, Houston, accepted what would become a twenty-year part-time teaching appointment at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Next, he turned to nonfiction. With his wife, Jeanne Wakatsuki-Houston, he wrote Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment, a landmark cultural history that recounted her family’s traumatic experience as Japanese Americans interned in California during World War II. Houston completed Californians: Searching for the Golden State, which received an American Book Award, an oral history that recorded the experiences of dozens of Californians, who, collectively, reflected the state’s diverse community.
It was while editing an anthology of California literature that Houston first began researching the legends surrounding the ill-fated Donner party, the migrants who in 1847 had been stranded in the Sierra Nevadamountains on their way to California for a fierce winter from which few in the party survived. (The daughter of the party’s organizer had actually lived at one time in Houston’s house.) The novel Snow Mountain Passage recounts the story from a split perspective: that of one of the leaders of the party trying to find the stranded family in the forbidding mountains and that of the grown daughter who, some eighty years later, struggles to make sense of the doomed passage. Resisting sensationalizing the story (particularly the lurid rumors of cannibalism), Houston explored the difficult relationship between the neophyte settlers and nature and, more pointedly, the implications of survival itself.
In 2006, Houston accepted the Lurie Distinguished Chair in Writing at his alma mater. His 2006 Bird of Another Heaven recounts the story of a Hawaiian woman, the former mistress of the last king of the islands, who emigrates to northern California during the gold strikes of the late 1800’s.
A prolific novelist and social historian, Houston explores in his signature works the trauma of cultural collisions and the courage of those who experience that trauma firsthand.