Don Berry (author): Difference between revisions

'''Don George Berry''' (January 23, 1932 – February 20, 2001)<ref name="ssdi">''Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014''. [[Social Security Administration]].</ref> was an American author and artist best known for his trilogy of historical novels about early settlers in the [[Oregon Country]]. Described as one of "Oregon's best fiction writers of the post-World War II generation",<ref name=":0">Baker, Jeff (1 May 2004). "Introduction by Jeff Baker." In Berry, Don. ''Trask.'' Oregon State University Press.</ref> and a "Forgotten Beat",<ref>{{Cite web|title=Don G. Berry '53|url=https://www.reed.edu/reed-magazine/in-memoriam/obituaries/may2001/don-g-berry-1953.html|website=Reed Magazine {{!}} In Memoriam|language=en-us|access-date=2020-05-20}}</ref> Berry's second novel, ''Moontrap'' (1962), was nominated for the National Book Award in 1963.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Oregon Genius of Don Berry|url=https://www.powells.com/post/on-oregon/the-oregon-genius-of-don-berry|last=Love|first=Matt|date=|website=www.powells.com|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-20}}</ref>

Berry was born in [[Redwood Falls, Minnesota]],<ref name="ssdi" /> the son of a banjo player and a swing band singer who separated when Berry was 2 years old.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Berry, Don (1932-2001)|url=https://www.historylink.org/File/10386|last=Riddle|first=Margaret|date=2013-05-18|website=www.historylink.org|access-date=2020-05-20}}</ref> Berry moved to [[Oregon]] with his mother when he was still in his teens, living in the [[Vanport, Oregon|Vanport]] housing project and attending [[Roosevelt High School (Oregon)|Roosevelt High School]], where he was elected student body president.<ref name=":1" /> Following the catastrophic [[Vanport, Oregon|Vanport flood]] of May 30, 1948, Berry discovered his name erroneously included in the list of over 2,000 missing, a fact which Berry took advantage of to break off ties with his alcoholic mother.<ref name=":1" /><ref>Stroud, Ellen. "Return to the Slough" in ''[https://books.google.co.ukcom/books?id=zkqEDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT99 The Nature of Hope: Grassroots Organizing, Environmental Justice, and Political Change]'' (University Press of Colorado, 2019), 99. </ref> After winning a scholarship in mathematics, Berry enrolled at [[Reed College]] in [[Portland, Oregon]], which he attended from 1949 to 1951, taking classes with the noted calligrapher [[Lloyd J. Reynolds|Lloyd Reynolds]] and historian [[Dorothy Johansen]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Don Berry (1932-2001)|url=https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/berry_don_1932_2001_/|website=oregonencyclopedia.org|access-date=2020-05-20}}</ref> To support himself during this time, worked in the university bookstore and slept in the boiler room, which he had been hired to tend.<ref name=":0" /> After befriending the poet [[Gary Snyder]], who shared Berry's interest in Eastern literature and [[metaphysics]], Berry was invited to move into the basement of 1414 Lambert Street, a house about a mile off campus, where he would live for the next 2 years. Other residents of the house would include the poets [[Lew Welch]] and [[Philip Whalen]], also students at Reed.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Schneider|first=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EyKsCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA58|title=Crowded by Beauty: The Life and Zen of Poet Philip Whalen|date=2015-07-26|publisher=Univ of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-96099-2|location=|pages=58|language=en}}</ref>

Together with Snyder, Welch, and Whalen, who would later informally come to be known as the [[Beat Generation|West Coast Beats]], Berry formed the Adelaide Crapsey-Oswald Spengler Mutual Admiration Poetasters Society, devoted to "[drinking] wine, [writing] poetry, and goof[ing] off".<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book|last=Hjortsberg|first=William|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lanGAgAAQBAJ&q=Adelaide+Crapsey-Oswald+Spengler+Mutual+Admiration&pg=PA107|title=Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan|date=2013-02-12|publisher=Counterpoint|isbn=978-1-61902-105-1|language=en}}</ref> During this period, Berry also met his future wife, the artist and author [[Kajira Wyn Berry]].

In 1956, after 144 rejection letters, Berry sold his first science fiction story, "Routine for a Hornet", which was published in the December issue of [[If (magazine)|''If'' magazine]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Routine for a Hornet|url=http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?92964|last=|first=|date=|website=www.isfdb.org|access-date=2020-05-20}}</ref> Over the next two years, Berry published 9 more science fiction stories in various magazines, abandoning the genre with the launch of the Soviet satellite [[Sputnik 1|Sputnik]] in 1957, which he claimed marked the "death of science fiction."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Summary Bibliography: Don Berry|url=http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?17715|website=www.isfdb.org|access-date=2020-05-20}}</ref><ref name=":1" />

In the late 1950s, Berry completed his first novel, ''Trask'' (1960), a historical account of a fictional episode from the life [[Elbridge Trask]], an Oregon settler in the 1840s who became one of the first white homesteaders on [[Tillamook Bay]]. While [[Hal Borland]] praised the book for showing "an unusual understanding of the old-time mountain men and Indians and the basic drama of change in the Pacific Northwest", he faulted it for getting "somewhat lost In the obscurities or mysticism and the Inner conflicts of inarticulate white men."<ref name=":2">{{Cite news|last=Borland|first=Hal|date=9 Sep 1962|title=Mountain Man Down From the Hills: MOONTRAP. By Don Berry. 339 pp. New York: The Viking Press. $4.95.|work=The New York Times Book Review|url=|access-date=}}</ref> More recently however, the spiritual themes of the book have been subject to a critical reappraisal, with Therése Jörgne completing a [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenological]] study of the novel in 2012.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Jörgne|first=Ella Therése|title=The Manifestation of Presential Space in Don Berry's Trask|publisher=Stockholms universitet, Humanistiska fakulteten, Engelska institutionen|year=2012|isbn=|location=Stockholm, Sweden|pages=}}</ref>

Berry followed up on the success of ''Trask'' with ''A Majority of Scoundrels'' (Harper and Brother, 1961),<ref>{{Cite webbook|title=Formats and Editions of A majority of scoundrels [WorldCat.org]|url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/a-majority-of-scoundrels/oclc/867471304/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true|websitevia=www.worldcat.org|oclc=867471304 |language=en|access-date=2020-05-20}}</ref> which provides an "informal history" of the [[fur trade]] in the [[Rocky Mountains]] through the story of the [[Rocky Mountain Fur Company]].

Berry's second historical novel set in the Oregon Country, ''Moontrap'' (1962),<ref>{{Cite webbook|title=Formats and Editions of Moontrap [WorldCat.org]|url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/moontrap/oclc/1233340/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true|websitevia=www.worldcat.org|oclc=1233340 |language=en|access-date=2020-05-20}}</ref> was perhaps his best known in his lifetime, having been nominated for the National Book Award in 1963. ''Moontrap'' depicts the difficult transition from fur trapping to farming, as experienced by a group of fur trappers and their Native American wives facing off against civic-minded entrepreneurs and the end of [[frontier justice]].<ref name=":2" />

According to his wife, Berry later completed a sequel to ''Trask'', which he burned.<ref name=":0" />

In the late 1960s, Berry was hired to work as a screenwriter and music producer in the film department of KGW, a Portland affiliate of Seattle's KING 5 TV, where he worked with the Hungarian-born filmmaker László Pal.<ref name=":1" /> The pair would go on to co-produce a number of documentary films, including ''Crab Fisherman'', ''Survivor at One O'Clock'', and ''Blue Water Hunters'' (1988).

After many years without publishing fiction, in the final six years of his life Berry became [[early adopter (marketing)|early adopter]] of the [[Internet]] for writing, posting dozens of short stories, humorous anecdotes, and philosophical essays to his personal website, "Berryworks".<ref>{{Cite web|title=Collective works of Don Berry|url=http://www.donberry.com/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040615014328/http://www.donberry.com/|url-status=dead|archive-date=2004-06-15|date=2004-06-15|access-date=2020-05-20}}</ref> Although the site is no longer maintained, this large body of literature, which includes a memoir and an unfinished fantasy novel set in [[Minoan civilization|Minoan]] [[Crete]] has been preserved thanks to the [[Internet Archive]].

*''Sketches from the Palace at Knossos'' (1995-2001), unfinished<ref>{{Cite web|title=Sketches from the Palace at Knossos|url=http://www.donberry.com/Fiction/Knossos/knossos.html|last=|first=|date=2004-06-09|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040609060906/http://www.donberry.com/Fiction/Knossos/knossos.html|archive-date=2004-06-09|access-date=2020-05-20}}</ref>

*''Magic Harbor'' (1995-2001)<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|title=Magic Harbor|url=http://donberry.com/harbor2/harbor2.html|last=|first=|date=2004-09-19|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040919110718/http://donberry.com/harbor2/harbor2.html|archive-date=2004-09-19|access-date=2020-05-20}}</ref>

Following Berry and Wyn's marriage in 1957, Berry became a step-father to three children from a previous marriage. David, Bonny and Duncan (oldest to youngest) are the names of his step-children. In the mid-1960s, the family moved to the Oregon coast, where they spent several years living off the land in a rustic cabin. After a period of touring the Caribbean on a 55 foot ketch, the family moved to [[Vashon, Washington|Vashon Island]] in 1974, living on a boat before moving into a home in the inner harbor.<ref name=":1" /> Berry and Wyn separated in 1987, and Berry returned to living on boat in 1995, an experience which he describes in his nonfiction memoir, ''Magic Harbor'' (1995-2001).<ref name=":3" /> Besides writing, Berry's lifelong artistic pursuits included [[bronze sculpture]], [[sumi-e]] painting, and [[blues]] guitar playing. He died in [[Seattle]] in 2001.<ref name="ssdi" />