Shaara served as a paratrooper for the 82nd Airborne Division, a merchant seaman, and police officer walking a beat. The one loss would serve as the basis for a later short story, “Come To My Party.”Īfter high school, Shaara’s work experiences resembled those of one of his favorite authors, Ernest Hemingway. Of the 18 matches Shaara fought as a young man, he won 17. His father also taught him to box, something that remained a passion in his life and figured in his writing. He received letters for basketball and track and excelled as a baseball pitcher. Shaara did extremely well in school, winning more awards in high school than any other student in the history of the school. The diversity in his parents brought him in touch with both worlds, North and South, a factor that probably allowed him to understand both sides in the Civil War. She was from the South, with family roots going back to Thomas Jefferson and “Light-Horse Harry” Lee.

Shaara described his father as being similar to Shakespeare: “political, but no good with money.” His mother, Alleene Maxwell Shaara, provided the opposite perspective in life.

His father, Michael Joseph Sr., was an Italian immigrant active in local unions and politics. Michael Shaara was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on June 23, 1929. What hooked him was the fun of the story “waiting to be told.” “I wrote only what came to mind, with no goal and little income, always for the joy of it, and it has been a great joy.” To Michael Shaara, the joy of carefully crafting a great story meant more than a mass-market audience or a lot of money.

The killer angels by michael shaara