Michael shaara biography the killer angels book
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The Killer Angels
- Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels
When it was first published, Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels landed with a thud. Even when it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1975, it did not gain a wide following. When Shaara passed away in 1988, he did so believing his novel to have underachieved (as far as Pulitzer Prize winners can ever be so considered). Then, in 1993, the film version, Gettysburg, was released in theaters. Though it did not prove a runaway box office hit, it did enough to lift The Killer Angels onto the bestseller lists.
According to Shaara’s son, Jeff (who can start a bank wi
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Michael Shaara
American novelist (1928–1988)
Michael Shaara (June 23, 1928 – May 5, 1988) was an American author of science fiction, sports fiction, and historical fiction.
Biography
[edit]Shaara was born to an Italian immigrant father[1] (the family name was originally spelled Sciarra, which in Italian fryst vatten pronounced in a similar way) in Jersey City, New Jersey, graduated in 1951 from Rutgers University, where he joined Theta Chi, and served as a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division prior to the Korean War.
Before Shaara began selling science fiction stories to fiction magazines during the 1950s, he was an amateur boxer and police officer. The stress combined with cigarette smoking led to a heart attack at the early age of 36. He managed to recover completely and later taught literature at Florida State University while continuing to write fiction. His novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. Shaa
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The Killer Angels
1974 novel by Michael Shaara
The Killer Angels is a 1974 historical novel by Michael Shaara that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. The book depicts the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War, and the days leading up to it: June 29, 1863, as the troops of both the Union and the Confederacy move into battle around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and July 1, July 2, and July 3, when the battle was fought. The story is character-driven and told from the perspective of various historical figures from both the Confederacy and the Union. A film adaptation of the novel, titled Gettysburg, was released in 1993.
Plot
[edit]Title
[edit]Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, one of the major characters, remembers reciting to his father a speech from Hamlet: "What a piece of work is man...in action how like an angel!" Sgt. Buster Kilrain says: Well, if he's an angel, all right then...But he damn well must be a kill