Michael Foster
Michael Foster was an American author born in 1904 in Hardy, Arkansas, who grew up in Rockford, Illinois. He studied at the Chicago Art Institute and embarked on a diverse career as a newspaper reporter, cartoonist, and even a screenwriter for the iconic film "Gone with the Wind." Foster's literary work is characterized by its realistic and detailed narratives that draw from his own life experiences, often featuring characters like reporters and sailors navigating through a cynical urban landscape. His first novel, "Forgive Adam," explores themes of corruption and disillusionment in the city, while his most acclaimed work, "American Dream," reflects on the revival of idealism through familial connections and personal history. Foster also published several other novels, including "To Remember at Midnight" and "House Above the River," which continued to delve into human experiences and ideals against the backdrop of societal challenges. Although he was well-regarded during the Great Depression and World War II, his works have not maintained the same appeal for contemporary readers or scholars, partly due to perceived overt ideological themes. Nonetheless, his contributions highlight the importance of learning from the past to navigate the complexities of modern life.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Michael Foster
Fiction Writer
- Born: August 29, 1904
- Birthplace: Hardy, Arkansas
- Died: March 25, 1956
Biography
Michael Foster, the son of a frontier Dakota newspaperman turned lawyer and banker, was born in Hardy, Arkansas, in 1904, and raised in Rockford, Illinois. Foster attended the Chicago Art Institute and then worked as a newspaper reporter and cartoonist, first in Salina, Kansas, and later in Seattle, Washington. He also worked briefly as a seaman and a screenwriter for the motion picture Gone with the Wind in 1932. Foster escaped city life whenever possible for his seaside cabin in Orcas Island, Washington, eventually settling there upon the success of his novel American Dream (1937). He later moved to Reno, Nevada, when he married his second wife.
Foster’s realistic, highly detailed novels borrow heavily from the themes of his own life, depicting reporters, a movie director, a sailor, and divorced parents who search for idealism and escape from a cynical urban world. This pattern emerged in Foster’s first novel, Forgive Adam (1935), which focused on newspaper reporter Anton Corneil’s struggle with the omnipresent corruption and greed in an unnamed urban city. Corneil becomes emotionally crippled and jaded through his experiences in the city, but eventually his son escapes a similar fate by leaving the city to live with his mother.
In 1937, Foster published American Dream, his most critically and commercially successful novel. The novel also deals with a cynical newspaper reporter, recounting how Shelby Thrall revives his idealistic belief in the American Dream through the discovery of his family’s letters and journals in his attic. The story weaves the experiences and points of view of multiple generations of Thralls, teaching Shelby Thrall that the American Dream, although never perfect, is a lofty ideal worth striving for.
Following the success of American Dream, Foster published To Remember at Midnight (1938), a novel about the early vaudeville “kerosene circuit,” House Above the River (1946), a philosophical novel about a Southern man who learns lessons about life from his father and grandfather, and The Dusty Godmother (1949), which contrasts the cynicism of a newspaper reporter and the idealism of his nine-year-old child. None of these novels equaled the success of American Dream, and although critical reception of his novels was approving, many reviewers felt that Foster’s ideology and political philosophy were too overt for the stories which supported them. Perhaps for this reason, Foster’s fiction has failed to capture a new generation of readers or attract scholarly attention. However, during the dark years of the Great Depression and World War II, Foster was widely recognized as an important author who advocated how learning from the past can help people deal with the cynical and corrupt contemporary world.