V. M. Straka
The writer V. M. Straka died last Wednesday in Havana Cuba according to authorities. A prolific and controversial novelist, he published eighteen novels, most notably Miracle at Braxenholm (1911), The Santana March (1922), and Wineblood's Mine (1939), and most infamously Washington & Greene, which was banned in the United States and the United Kingdom shortly after publication in 1929 because of its seditious themes and its slanderous attacks on public figures.
It is almost universally agreed that "V. M. Straka" was a pseudonym, and no verifiable facts about the writer's life have ever come to light. (Theories about his identity have abounded for decades. Just last month, the biographer of the late Canadian adventurer C. F. J. Wallingford claimed that his subject led a double life as the gadfly novelist.) Straka shunned all contact with the public; he gave no interviews or lectures, and appears to have had no friendships or even contact with others in his profession. His longtime publisher, Karst & Son, has never provided any biographical details.
Most critics believe that Straka's best-known books were successful more their leftist outrages than for their literary quality. Proof of this can be found in his final two books - the impenetrable Coriolis and the saccharine Winged Shoes of Emido[sic]Alves in which the writer largely dispensed with his dogmatic political stances and attempted to win readers with more conventionally pleasing themes. Both with ignominious failures, critically and comercially[sic], and it was well understood that Straka's most successful and most interesting years were behind him.
Police in Havana say Straka was the victim of a violent attack in the hotel room in which he was staying. Fittingly, he had registered there under a pseudonym.
It is, of course, impossible to discuss what sort of man Straka was without knowing which man Straka was. Still, a writer's work is a likely indicator of his temperament and tendencies; in Straka's case, one might reasonably conclude that he was a thoroughly disagreeable, socially inept, inconsiderate of anyone's needs but his own, strident in his poorly-informed opinions, and given to unhealthy habits and associations - in short, the sort of man whose demise will grieve only the handful of readers who remain interested in consuming his stories - not anyone whose life had in any way intersected with his.
It is unknown whether Straka left a family or a literary executor. Karst & Son has issued any comments on the death.
(photo of obit can be found here.)
somewhat off-topic, but ran across the story of james forrestal again tonight, committed suicide allegedly by jumping out of a 16th floor hospital window on may 22,1949. allegations of murder have existed ever since. forrestal was secretary of the navy when ww2 ended and a strong critic of the truman administration.
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