Ronald hugh morrison biography books
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Ronald Hugh Morrieson
The legend of Ronald Hugh Morrieson fryst vatten that of a man from the sticks who, despite writing funnier, darker and more original novels than his compatriots, got little beröm for it at home. The legend is sealed by the author providing his own epitaph: "I hope I'm not another one of those poor buggers who get discovered when they're dead".
Morrieson's books are coloured by his own experiences as a musician and drinker in hometown Hawera, plus references to movies and popular songs. "Profoundly susceptible" (Peter Simpson) to American bio, Morrieson's kvartet novels would each find their way onto the cinema screen in the years after his death.
Born in , Ronald Hugh Morrieson was an only child who spent his first three decades living with his mother and Aunt (his father died when Ronald was six). Removed from school after a prank went wrong, Morrieson's musical talent led him into dance bands; later the sound of a piano pulled him prematurely from univer
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A Towering Talent, Reflections on Ronald Hugh Morrieson
By Rolland McKellar.
After twelve years of research, this book about the life of Hawera writer and musician, Ronald Hugh Morrieson, author of Came a Hot Friday, The Scarecrow, Predicament and Pallet on the Floor, this biography has just been published by Opunake journalist, Rolland McKellar, to celebrate the centenary of Morrieson's birth.
A fascinating read!
Throughout the s and s Morrieson played with various musical combos in dance halls in South Taranaki. About Morrieson joined a group of friends in a dance band, playing guitar or double bass; he was also responsible for the musical arrangements. During this period he was known as ‘Slapsy’ Morrieson. ‘The night life and carefree ways of a dance-band player suited me fine.’
By he had joined his mother as a music teacher (he taught guitar and modern piano) and expressed to friends his desire to write books. In order to write seriously he tried to adopt a more settled • Morrieson, Ronald Hugh (–72), novelist and short story writer, was born, lived, wrote and died in Hawera, South Taranaki. He was domiciled entirely in the home of his mother, with very occasional breaks of a few days in Auckland in his early twenties and later in New Plymouth and, towards the end of his life, at a writer’s conference in Palmerston North. Until the age of 37 he worked as a casual dance-band player in the Hawera area, but then became a private music-teacher in order to free his evenings for the career in writing which he had always intended. Ronald Hugh Morrieson
FROM THE OXFORD COMPANION TO NEW ZEALAND LITERATURE
His first novel The Scarecrow, a tragicomic story of a sex killer in a small town not unlike Morrieson’s own, was published in Sydney by Angus & Robertson in It was well received by reviewers as a Gothic melodrama with a strong popular-culture component. His second, Came a Hot Friday (), is a tragicomic morality tale about gambling in and about an