Richard M. McKenna
Richard M. McKenna was an American author and former naval officer, known primarily for his acclaimed novel "The Sand Pebbles." Born on May 9, 1913, in Mountain Home, Idaho, he faced educational challenges during the Great Depression, which led him to join the United States Navy at eighteen. Over his twenty-two years of service, he gained extensive experience, including a significant period in Asia. After retiring in 1953, McKenna transitioned to writing, producing a variety of works that reflect his naval experiences, as well as science fiction short stories that demonstrate his knowledge in fields like anthropology and ecology.
His best-known work, "The Sand Pebbles," published in 1962, achieved remarkable success, spending twenty-eight weeks on The New York Times Best-Seller List and receiving multiple accolades, including the Sir Walter Raleigh Award. McKenna's contributions to literature continued posthumously with several collections of his writings, highlighting his wit and insights on education and writing. He passed away at the age of fifty-one in 1964, and his legacy is honored in his hometown, where a high school is named after him. His literary effects are preserved for future generations, reflecting his lasting impact on both literature and education.
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Richard M. McKenna
Writer
- Born: May 9, 1913
- Birthplace: Mountain Home, Idaho
- Died: November 1, 1964
- Place of death: Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Biography
Richard Milton McKenna was born in Mountain Home, Idaho, on May 9, 1913. He was the son of Milton Lewis and Lucy (née Ertz) McKenna, the eldest of three children. As a youth, McKenna read voraciously nearly every book in the Carnegie Library (now a museum) in his hometown. After graduating from Mountain Home High School in 1930, he attended a year at the College of Idaho. Unfortunately, an exorbitant fifty-dollar tuition fee during the Depression forced him to bypass his education.
McKenna joined the United States Navy in 1931 at the age of eighteen. He served for twenty-two years and retired as a chief machinist’s mate in 1953. Ten of these years were spent in Asia, two of them on a Yangtze River gunboat in China. McKenna took correspondence courses while in the Navy. Near the end of his twenty-two-year naval career, McKenna worked in a public- relations office writing features and news articles. From 1953 on, he was a freelance writer.
After leaving the navy, McKenna began a new career, and was extremely successful. He started college when he was forty. He graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1956 with a B.A. in English. He was named to Phi Beta Kappa, an honor society. He married Eva Mae Grice, a librarian, on January 28, 1956, when he was forty-two.
In 1960, his agent, Rogers Terrill, encouraged him to write a novel based on his navy experiences. He started writing The Sand Pebbles when he was forty-six and it became his best- known book. It tells the story of the crew of a naval ship, the San Pablo, which patrolled China between 1925 and 1927. It was published in 1962, when he was forty-nine.
The Sand Pebbles spent twenty-eight weeks on The New York Times Best-Seller List in 1963 and was selected for the Book-of-the-Month Club. The novel was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post and translated into ten languages. It was filmed by Twentieth Century Fox in 1956. The movie version of the novel won nine Golden Globes and was nominated for eight Academy Awards. The book also won him the Sir Walter Raleigh Award in 1963, and the Harper Prize (1963).
McKenna’s short stories, many of them science-fiction pieces, appeared in various magazines and in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. The story “The Secret Place” was published posthumously but won the Nebula Award in 1966. His science fiction is noted for his grasp of such widely diverse disciplines as anthropology, biochemistry, and ecology.
McKenna died November 1, 1964, at the age of fifty-one from a heart attack. The Sons of Martha, and Other Stories was published posthumously in 1967. It was intended to be his second short-story collection, but he never completed it.
New Eyes for Old: Nonfiction Writings was a posthumously published collection of his speeches. It is rich in metaphor and anecdote and reveals McKenna’s wit, his humor, and his passion for words. His speeches are great contributions to literary and academic societies for his insights on education and the process of writing.
In 1999, McKenna’s old school in Mountain Home, Idaho, was renamed the Richard M. McKenna High School. An English teacher there, Jose Madarieta, has acquired many of McKenna’s literary effects (including the original manuscript of The Sand Pebbles) with intentions of creating an archive and repository at Mountain Home.