George V. Higgins
George V. Higgins was an influential American author and attorney, best known for his crime novels that often drew upon his extensive legal experience and insights into the underworld. Born in Brockton, Massachusetts, to Irish-American schoolteachers, Higgins grew up in a working-class environment and showed an early interest in writing. After receiving a bachelor's degree from Boston College and a master's degree from Stanford University, he began his career in journalism, reporting for the Providence Journal and covering the intricacies of New England's criminal landscape.
Higgins practiced law, notably working in various prosecutorial roles and gaining firsthand exposure to organized crime, particularly the Irish and Italian mafias. His legal career transitioned to private practice, where he defended high-profile clients. His most celebrated work, "The Friends of Eddie Coyle," gained critical acclaim, exemplifying his ability to weave authentic criminal narratives. In addition to fiction, Higgins wrote essays and nonfiction on diverse subjects, including baseball and political scandals. He also contributed to academia by teaching creative writing. Higgins passed away in 1999, leaving a lasting legacy in both literature and law.
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George V. Higgins
Author
- Born: November 13, 1939
- Birthplace: Brockton, Massachusetts
- Died: November 6, 1999
- Place of death: Milton, Massachusetts
Biography
George V. Higgins, who was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, was the son of Irish-American schoolteachers who provided him an education in Catholic schools. He grew up in working-class Rockland, Massachusetts, and after elementary school attended Rockland High School. During his high-school years, he read widely in the works of John O’Hara, Ernest Hemingway, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He also wrote his first novel, Operation Cincinnatus, which he destroyed, along with other novels he had penned in high school. Following graduation, he enrolled in Boston College, and then received a master’s degree from Stanford University in 1965. He then began a journalistic career with the Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin and also wrote pieces for the Associated Press. That experience, which included a firsthand look at the New England underworld, was to stand him in good stead when he later began to write crime novels.
His writing career was also influenced by his second career, which was in law. He entered the Boston College Law School in 1965, received his J.D. in 1967, and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar. He progressed rapidly through the ranks in the next seven years, from legal assistant, to deputy assistant attorney general, to assistant attorney general, to assistant U. S. attorney for the district of Massachusetts, and then to special assistant U.S. attorney in 1973. He had considerable exposure to the Irish and Italian mafias fighting for control of New England and prosecuted several underworld figures. In 1974, he switched sides, going into private practice and defending prominent clients such as G. Gordon Liddy and Eldridge Cleaver. His courtroom experience led to two stints as an instructor in trial practice at Boston College School of Law during the 1970’s. In 1979, he and his wife, Elizabeth Mulkerin, divorced, and he subsequently married Loretta Lucas Cubberly.
In addition to writing for the Providence newspaper, he also published essays and columns in the Chicago Tribune, the Times of London, the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic Monthly. His major writing achievement of the 1970’s, however, was in fiction. The Friends of Eddie Coyle, which the British Booksellers Association chose in 1985 as one of the twenty best American novels since World War II, was a critical and popular success; it was translated to film in 1973 with Robert Mitchum as Eddie. Jeremiah Kennedy, his protagonist in two other crime novels, is a lawyer who, like Higgins, defends guilty clients. Higgins, who changed careers again, also taught creative writing at the State University of New York at Buffalo (1987) and at Boston University. Despite being identified as a crime writer, his writing has covered a wide range of topics. His nonfiction includes a book about writing, one about baseball (The Progress of the Seasons: Forty Years of Baseball in Our Town), and one on the Richard Nixon presidential scandal. He died in 1999.