Naturalist author Peter Matthiessen dies at 86

NEW YORK - Globetrotting US naturalist and writer Peter Matthiessen, known for books such as "At Play in the Fields of the Lord," has died at his New York state home, his publisher said Saturday. He was 86.

"Peter passed away this evening. We are honored to have known him and his beautiful and wild mind," his publisher Riverhead Books said in a statement.

Matthiessen, who reportedly had been treated for leukemia in the past year, had been awaiting publication of his final novel, "In Paradise," April 8, Riverhead confirmed.

Matthiessen was among the founders of the prestigious literary magazine The Paris Review.

In 1961, Matthiessen, a wilderness trekker and liberal environmentalist, raised his profile as a novelist with "At Play in the Fields of the Lord." The story of missionaries in the crosshairs of indigenous people and mercenaries in Brazil's Amazon jungle was made into a Hollywood film starring John Lithgow and Daryl Hannah.

He also earned National Book Awards for "The Snow Leopard," about a spiritual trip to the Himalayas, and for "Shadow Country."

Though he grew up a child of privilege, his life took dramatic turns as his personal adventures took him from Asia to Australia to New Guinea and South America; he was even a CIA spy in Paris in the 1950s.

While he wrote more than 30 books, the peripatetic Matthiessen—arguably better known for his non-fiction—called fiction his greater calling.

Yet they were complementary talents, among many. Indeed, he was the only writer honored with the National Book Award in both fiction and non-fiction. — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Joe McGinniss, author of ‘Fatal Vision,’ dies at 71

Journalist Joe McGinniss, an author who got up close to his subjects for revealing books such as "The Selling of the President" and "Fatal Vision," died on Monday at age 71, his friend and attorney said.

McGinniss died of complications from prostate cancer at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, lawyer Dennis Holahan said in an email. The author had announced last year that he was in the advanced stage of the disease.

His 1983 book "Fatal Vision" became a classic of the true crime genre and was based on unlimited access he gained to former Green Beret Jeffrey MacDonald and his attorneys during MacDonald's 1979 murder trial in the deaths of his pregnant wife and two young daughters in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

MacDonald, who at the time of the 1970 killings was an Army doctor, was found guilty and is serving three life sentences.

He has maintained the murders were committed by drug-crazed intruders. McGinniss had begun by expressing support for MacDonald but ended by concluding in his book that he was guilty of killing his family.

"I kept trying to find any reason I could to believe that he was not guilty," McGinniss testified at a 2012 court hearing where MacDonald sought to be granted a new trial.

New Yorker magazine writer Janet Malcolm, in a 1989 article, accused McGinnis of displaying the underside of journalism by deceiving MacDonald with a show of support and then betraying his confidence, an argument McGinnis vehemently denied.

Born in New York, he attended college in Massachusetts and early on became a sports reporter before winning a job as a columnist with the Philadelphia Inquirer.

He gained national attention with the 1969 publication of "The Selling of the President."

The bestseller gave a behind-the-scenes account of how advertising and media professionals packaged Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon in his successful 1968 campaign for the White House.

One of the main subjects of Nixon's team portrayed in the book was television producer-turned-media-strategist Roger Ailes, who is now chairman of Fox News Channel.

McGinniss is also the author of the 2011 book "The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin," an unflattering portrait of the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee. For the book, he took up residence next to Palin's home in Wasilla, Alaska.

The author had in 1980 published a book about Alaska, titled "Going to Extremes", that explored the vestiges of the state's frontier culture and gave personal descriptions of everyone from bush pilots to teachers. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com