David Morrell

• Born: April 24, 1943
• Place of Birth: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

TYPES OF PLOT: Thriller; espionage

PRINCIPAL SERIES: Rambo, 1972-1988; Abelard Sanction, 1984-2006; Creepers, 2005-2007; Thomas De Quincey, 2013-2016.

Contribution

David Morrell is often considered the father of the modern action thriller. He revels in that identification and action sequences are his greatest strength. His novels set a relentless pace filled with chase scenes, violent confrontations, and a large body count. Morrell continually tries to speed up the pacing of his novels. His prose, especially since the mid-1990s, has been stripped to the bare essentials to keep the story moving. His chapters are short and often end with cliffhangers. Morrell’s success with action novels has helped usher in an age of hyper-fast thrillers that make the spy novels of the 1980s look slow.

Morrell’s works are generally not acclaimed by literary critics, as is typical of plot-driven novels, but his books consistently make bestseller lists, and his readers are enthusiastic. It is telling that when thriller writers started organizing themselves, they immediately invited Morrell to help. He sat on the steering committee that formed the International Thriller Writers and was elected co-president. Within that community, his work is highly regarded.

Biography

David Bernard Morrell had a troubled childhood. His father, George Morrell, flew with the Royal Air Force in World War II but was wounded and died of pneumonia shortly after David’s birth. His mother, Beatrice Markle Morrell, who struggled financially and had her own troubled childhood, temporarily put David in an orphanage when he was four. Morrell has wondered if the woman who retrieved him was the same one who had left him. Morrell’s mother then placed David on a Mennonite farm while she worked, seeing him only on weekends.

Morrell’s mother eventually remarried and brought him to live with her and her new husband above a bar. However, his stepfather was always arguing with his mother and provided a poor father figure. Morrell often slept under his bed out of fear. The family had no television or telephone. Neither his mother nor his stepfather read much, so few books were in the home. For entertainment, Morrell listened to the radio, explored abandoned buildings, and watched drunks fight beneath his window.

After their finances improved, the family moved to suburbia. Morrell treated school as a distraction, spending his time playing pool, running with street gangs, or watching television and films. Morrell’s life changed in 1960 when the television series Route 66 (1960-1964) aired. Stirling Silliphant wrote most of the show’s episodes, and Morrell found himself stimulated emotionally and intellectually by the stories. In the eleventh grade, Morrell decided to become a writer. He wrote Silliphant about his plans, and Silliphant wrote back with encouragement. If it had not been for that letter, Morrell claims he never would have attended college.

Morrell married his high-school sweetheart, Donna Maziarz, in 1965. He was in college in Canada at the time, and he read a book on Ernest Hemingway by the scholar Philip Young. Young taught at Pennsylvania State University, and Morrell, his wife, and newborn daughter, Sarie, moved to the United States in 1966. Morrell became Young’s student, eventually earning a Master’s degree and a doctorate in American literature. At Penn State, Morrell met the noted science-fiction writer Philip Klass (who wrote as William Tenn). Morrell persistently pursued Klass’s help with his fiction, and after a time, the older writer agreed and gave him some personal instruction. Because of this, Morrell began reading popular suspense fiction for the first time, and his writing took on more immediacy. This culminated in the publication of First Blood in 1972.

After earning his doctorate in 1970, Morrell began teaching at the University of Iowa. He wrote fiction and taught literature for sixteen years, acquiring tenure and full professorship, but retired in 1986 to write full-time. Unfortunately, Morrell’s son, Matthew, died in 1987 at the age of fifteen of complications from bone cancer, and it was several years before Morrell recovered his ability to write fiction. Morrell chronicled Matthew’s death in Fireflies: A Father’s Tale of Love and Loss (1988). In 1992, Morrell moved with his wife to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he regained his momentum as a writer.

Morrell is a cofounder and has served as the president of the International Thriller Writers. In the 2020s, he holds the title of “Emeritus” in the organization. He has trained in weapon tactics, wilderness survival, defensive driving, and other skills that he portrays in his books. He received a Distinguished Recognition Award for First Blood and has twice won the Bram Stoker Award for shorter fiction. His Creepers (2005) tied for the Stoker Award for Best Novel.

Throughout the early decades of the twenty-first century, Morrell continued to write. Although his Rambo series ended in 1988, and his Abelard Sanction series ended in 1987, Morrell did contribute a short fiction update to the Abelard Sanction series in 2006 in Thriller: Stories To Keep You Up All Night, edited by James Patterson. Morrell has contributed many other series and stand-alone novels to the thriller genre, as well as written nonfiction and comic books. He wrote two novels in his Creepers series and four novels in his Thomas De Quincey series: Murder as a Fine Art (2013), The Opium Eater: A Thomas De Quincey Story (2015), Inspector of the Dead (2015), and Ruler of the Night (2016). In addition, Morrell has written for the Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Captain America comic book series. 

Analysis

The three most important elements of David Morrell’s work are his focus on thrillers, his early themes (before his son’s death), and his later themes (after). Morrell takes the role of thriller writer seriously. He never apologizes for writing to excite and entertain readers. Action is at the core of his work, but his books also examine specific ideas that Morrell finds interesting. Creepers introduced readers to urban exploration, where people venture into storm drains, abandoned subway lines, and derelict buildings in search of the past. Scavenger (2007) wove information about time capsules and virtual reality into the action scenes.

Because of the thriller’s pace, Morrell’s characters are typically sketched quickly and in broad terms. He is sometimes criticized for creating shallow characters. There are certainly commonalities among his characters. Frank Balenger was created for Creepers and Scavenger, two of Morrell’s later books, but is remarkably similar to Rambo, from his first novel. Both Balenger and Rambo were in the military special forces. Both experienced the trauma of war, and both suffered capture and torture by enemies. In fact, almost all of Morrell’s characters are either former members of special forces, spies, or assassins, and though Morrell was never in the military, his characters follow a military-style code that demands honor, loyalty, courage, and self-sacrifice. After moving to Santa Fe in 1992, however, Morrell began introducing more mature male/female relationships into his work.

Before his son’s death in 1987, Morrell’s primary themes seemed to be fear, especially of war and violence; security and its loss; a son’s search for his father; religion; and personal identity. These themes were a natural result of his own childhood. He feared abandonment because his mother had already left him once. He feared war because the father he never knew died in one, and he feared violence because he saw it on the streets and experienced it through countless arguments between his mother and stepfather. He also desperately craved a father and was envious of friends who had fathers. His search for a father led him to strong men who significantly affected his life, including Silliphant, Young, and Klass. His Roman Catholic upbringing led him to create a significant number of Catholic characters, including Rambo, and his curiosity and confusion over his own history led to a crisis of personal identity that informs many of his works.

Many of Morrell’s early themes continued in the second half of his career, after his son’s death, but these themes were often altered slightly, and new themes were added. Fear and violence continued to play major roles in his work, perhaps best illustrated in The Protector (2003), which features a chemical that can literally frighten people to death. Morrell’s interest in the nature of personal identity also continued, in such books as Assumed Identity (1993), in which a retired intelligence agent is confused about his real identity after years of assuming the identities of others. Morrell’s interest in security followed him into the 1990’s and beyond, but the focus became less about personal security and more about family security. In First Blood, Rambo has to take care of only himself, and his personal security begins and ends with his individual skills. In contrast, in The Protector, the security agent hero depends on a team, and when that team is destroyed, he turns to his wife.

Morrell’s father/son theme changed dramatically after his own son’s death. In his early period, Morrell wrote about sons searching for fathers. In Blood Oath (1982), Morrell’s most autobiographical work, an American professor journeys to France to find the grave of his father, who was killed in World War II. Orphans searching for fathers are major characters in the trilogy that begins with The Brotherhood of the Rose (1984). After his son’s death, however, Morrell became a grief-stricken father searching for a son. Morrell had planned a sequel to The League of Night and Fog (1987, the third book in the trilogy) that would continue the theme of sons seeking fathers, but he could no longer identify with such characters after the loss of his own boy. Instead, he began using fiction to recover something of his son, which played out dramatically in Desperate Measures (1994), a book whose main character has lost a son to bone cancer.

A theme that largely faded away during the second half of Morrell’s career was his fascination with religious concepts. Although early books like the Grisman and MacLane novels all dealt with religion and religious institutions, after his son’s death, only The Covenant of the Flame (1991) did so, and it is considered one of his weaker books. Morrell’s feelings on religion are discussed in Fireflies. In contrast, a theme that intensifies dramatically in Morrell’s post-1987 work is his concern over how humans damage the environment. In The Covenant of the Flame, for example, a religious group protects the environment by brutally slaughtering anyone who seriously harms it. Morrell received hate mail from nonenvironmentalists over this book. The Covenant of the Flame brought environmental concerns to the forefront in Morrell’s work, and most of his later books touch on the subject. In Creepers, the theme of environmental decay and destruction is particularly strong. One notable theme that does not appear often in Morrell’s work is humor, although it shows up in short stories such as “The Partnership” and “The Storm.”

First Blood

In First Blood (1972), the novel on which the series of films starring Sylvester Stallone was based, Vietnam veteran and Green Beret John Rambo has returned to the United States. He is hitchhiking across the country when his rough appearance draws the attention of Wilfred Teasle, a local police chief in Kentucky. Escorted out of town, Rambo returns, and when a deputy tries to cut his hair and give him a shave, the veteran retaliates and escapes. This leads to a chase through the mountains of Kentucky and the ultimate face-off between Teasle and Rambo. Returning Vietnam veterans, who were not greeted warmly by the public, saw something of themselves in Rambo. The success of the 1982 film based on this novel led to Morrell’s writing two sequels.

The Brotherhood of the Rose

The Brotherhood of the Rose (1984) was Morrell’s first large-scale novel. It had more characters than his previous books and a more complicated plot involving international intrigue. The initial book in a trilogy it illustrates most of Morrell’s early themes. Saul Grisman, a Jew, and Chris Kilmoonie, a Roman Catholic, are raised in a Philadelphia orphanage. They are befriended by an older CIA operative named Eliot, who becomes like a foster father to the boys and trains them as assassins but later tries to incriminate and kill them to protect himself from his own mistakes. Chris is killed, but Saul survives and seeks revenge. This novel contains the themes of sons searching for fathers, fear of abandonment and betrayal, religion, and the code of honor and self-sacrifice that form a Morrell hero's backbone.

Fireflies

Although not a thriller, Fireflies is essential for understanding Morrell as a writer, particularly how his themes altered midway through his career. Fireflies is a memoir of his son’s death. Fifteen-year-old Matthew died of a heart attack triggered by septic shock as a result of a bone marrow transplant to treat his bone cancer. However, Fireflies is not completely factual. Morrell fictionalized part of the account, having himself experience a nightmare/premonition about how Matthew would die and then try to prevent it. According to Morrell, however, the book accurately presents the emotional turmoil surrounding Matthew’s death, and it reveals actual experiences that convinced Morrell his son’s spirit survived. Fireflies is an emotionally wrenching read.

The Protector

In The Protector (2003), the protagonist, Cavanaugh, was in Delta Force, the US Army counterterrorism special forces unit, for five years. Having become addicted to adrenaline, he becomes a security agent for high-profile celebrities and businesspeople. He and his team try to help Prescott, a brilliant biochemist, disappear, but Prescott has invented a chemical that triggers intense fear. After using Cavanaugh’s team, Prescott turns on them, killing all but Cavanaugh. Cavanaugh must then learn to depend on his wife, Jamie, as he pursues Prescott across the country with rogue government agents hunting them all. The Protector is action-filled and features Morrell’s prototypical hero, a former special forces soldier with a rough childhood. The book examines Morrell’s loss and betrayal, as well as themes of security and identity.

Principal Series Characters:

• John Rambo is described in First Blood, but most people probably see him as the actor Sylvester Stallone, who played him in three films (1982, 1985, 1988). Rambo’s mother died early; his father was an abusive alcoholic. The boy was often hungry and quit school to work. Later, Rambo fought in the Vietnam War as a Green Beret and won the Medal of Honor but was tortured as a prisoner of war and left psychologically scarred. Rambo’s popular characterization owes much to the films, although expanded novelizations were created for the second and third films.
• Saul Grisman is an orphan who, along with his friend Chris Kilmoonie, is befriended by Eliot, a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative. Eliot trains them as operatives but later tries to murder them. Chris is killed; Saul goes after Eliot for revenge.
• Drew MacLane is a former assassin living in a monastery when his past returns to threaten him. Saul and Drew join forces to uncover a conspiracy that punishes sons for their father's sins.
• Frank Balenger fought in Operation Desert Storm as a member of the Army Rangers. He suffered Gulf War syndrome and left the army to become a police detective. His wife, Diane, disappeared, and Balenger lost his job because he was searching for her. To earn money for his search, Balenger took a corporate security job in Iraq after the Gulf War but was captured and tortured. After his rescue, he returned to the United States and was treated for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Bibliography

“Bio.” David Morrell, davidmorrell.net/bio. Accessed 2 Aug. 2024.

“Career Pursuit: An Interview with David Morrell.” The Big Thrill, 31 Jan. 2020, www.thebigthrill.org/2020/01/career-pursuit-an-interview-with-david-morrell. Accessed 2 Aug. 2024.

Faludi, Susan. Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man. New York: Harper Perennial, 2000.

Morrell, David. Black Evening. New York: Warner Books, 1999.

Morrell, David. Fireflies: A Father’s Tale of Love and Loss. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1988.

Morrell, David. Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books, 2002.

Morrell, David. Nightscape. London: Headline Book Publishing, 2004.