Jesse Hill Ford
Jesse Hill Ford, Jr. was an influential American author born on December 28, 1928, in Troy, Alabama, and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated from Vanderbilt University and initially worked in public relations before dedicating himself to writing in 1957. Ford gained recognition for his literary contributions, particularly with his novel *The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones*, which addressed racial tensions in Tennessee and earned nominations for prestigious awards. His early work was well-received, but he faced significant backlash in the South due to its controversial themes, culminating in personal tragedy when he inadvertently killed a soldier in 1970, which severely impacted his life and career.
Despite these challenges, Ford continued to write and produced notable works, including the Edgar Award-winning story "The Jail." He held various teaching positions, mentoring future writers, but struggled with depression in the later years of his life. Jesse Hill Ford's legacy is that of a complex figure who poignantly explored the social issues of his time through fiction, even as personal and societal challenges affected his later output. He tragically took his own life on June 1, 1996, in Nashville, leaving behind a body of work that continues to be respected in Southern literature.
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Subject Terms
Jesse Hill Ford
Fiction Writer and Playwright
- Born: December 28, 1928
- Birthplace: Troy, Alabama
- Died: June 1, 1996
- Place of death: Nashville, Tennessee
Biography
Jesse Hill Ford, Jr., was born in Troy, Alabama, on December 28, 1928, to Jesse Hill Ford and Lucille Musgrove Ford. Growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, Ford attended the Montgomery Bell Academy and Vanderbilt University, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1951. That year, Ford married Sarah “Sally” Davis of Humbolt, Tennessee; the couple had four children before divorcing in 1973. Ford received a master’s degree from the University of Florida in 1955.
He worked in public relations in Nashville and Chicago, but in 1957, having decided to become a full-time writer, he moved his family back to Humbolt—the model for the imaginary community of Somerton, Sligo County, Tennessee, where much of Ford’s fiction is set. Success shortly came his way when the Atlantic Monthly began publishing his stories; in 1959 “The Surest Thing in Show Business” won the Atlantic Monthly award. His stage play The Conversion of Buster Drumwright (1964) was adapted for, and aired on, national television. He received an O. Henry Award for his story “How the Mountains Are.” Ford’s best-known novel, The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones (1965), about racial murders in Tennessee, was nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and was made into an acclaimed 1970 film starring Lee J. Cobb and Roscoe Lee Brown.
To all indications, Ford was establishing himself as a major voice in Southern literature. However, two events undercut his success, both born of the racial tensions familiar to Ford since childhood. First, while highly popular outside the South, Lord Byron Jones evoked a harsh reaction—including death threats—from both whites and African Americans in Tennessee who recognized the historical events on which the fiction was based. Then, in 1970, Ford killed a black soldier who he mistakenly thought was threatening his family. Though exonerated of murder, the deeply religious Ford was devastated by his blunder and by the negative media coverage and enormous cost of legal defense, which destroyed his reputation and finances. The incident strained his relationship with his children and contributed to his 1973 divorce.
In 1975, Ford married Lillian Pelletieri Chandler in Nashville, and the same year his final novel, The Raider, was published. In 1976, his story “The Jail” won the Edgar Award as the year’s outstanding mystery tale. His second marriage was happy, and though he wrote no more novels, he did produce many screenplays, essays, and editorial columns—the last from the perspective of a conservative Democratic. He also held a series of university teaching and writer-in-residence positions in which he mentored such future literary lights as Richard North Patterson. At age sixty-six, Ford underwent open-heart surgery, and it is thought that his postoperative medication, combined with the psychic scars from the 1970’s, produced a crushing depression. On June 1, 1996, in Nashville, he shot himself to death.
Ford is respected as an outstanding literary craftsman. Critic Donald Davidson, for example, called The Conversion of Buster Drumwright “the best example of the three-act television play ever written.” Like William Faulkner, Ford is known for creating a fictive Southern community in which he courageously examined the evil effects of Jim Crow. Some critics, however, believe Ford’s personal tragedies and the turmoil of his times led to flaws in his post-1970 work and left some of Ford’s early promise unfulfilled.