Mark Childress Biography

American novelist, born in Monroeville, Alabama, educated at the University of Alabama. His first novel, A World Made of Fire (1985), gained considerable attention for its sensitive evocation of rural Alabama in the first two decades of the twentieth century, and focuses on Stella, a young woman coming to terms with the death of her ‘poor white’ mother in a fire. V for Victor (1989) tells of an adolescent who unwittingly becomes involved with German spies during the Second World War. His third novel, Tender (1990), is epic in scope and concerns the origins and early career of a rock and roll star who bears more than a passing resemblance to Elvis Presley. The Civil Rights Movement and other liberating developments of the 1960s form the basis of Crazy in Alabama (1993). He has also published childrens' fiction.