Ronald hugh morrieson biography

The legend of Ronald Hugh Morrieson is that of a man from the sticks who, despite writing funnier, darker and more original novels than his compatriots, got little praise for it at home. The legend is sealed by the author providing his own epitaph: "I hope I'm not another one of those poor buggers who get discovered when they're dead".

Morrieson's books are coloured by his own experiences as a musician and drinker in hometown Hawera, plus references to movies and popular songs.

Ronald hugh morrieson biography: Ronald Hugh Morrieson was

Born in , Ronald Hugh Morrieson was an only child who spent his first three decades living with his mother and Aunt his father died when Ronald was six. Removed from school after a prank went wrong, Morrieson's musical talent led him into dance bands; later the sound of a piano pulled him prematurely from university back to Hawera. At 37, Morrieson swapped playing for music teaching and writing.

His first novel The Scarecrow was published by leading Australian company Angus and Robertson in Mixing comedy and horror, it was the gothic tale of a stranger who turns up in a Hawera-like town awash with pubescent teenagers. Morrieson's comparison of the scarecrow to a horror movie zombie is just one of many cinematic references found in the author's work; biographer Julia Millen has also written of his "enduring fascination" with the "smart clothing, habitual drinking, smoking and gambling, and large touring cars" of Hollywood gangster films.

Though The Scarecrow 's sales were initially unremarkable, newspapers on both sides of the Tasman were generally impressed - The Dominion called it brilliant and highly original, while the Sydney Morning Herald praised how Morrieson had melded at least six genres together "to produce a brilliant, hallucinatory mixture distinctively his own". Morrieson's second novel Came a Hot Friday emerged in Set over one hectic weekend in a post-war New Zealand loaded with bookies, carousers, cars and conmen, Friday was met with reviews that ranged across the board, from enthused to offended.