Ann Head

Head was born on October 30, 1915, in Beaufort, South Carolina.[2][3][4] Her father was Niels Christensen Jr., who owned the Beaufort Gazette newspaper from 1903–22 and served in the South Carolina Senate from 1905–25,[2][5][6] and her mother was Katherine (Nancy) Wales Stratton Christensen, from Boston.[6][7] Head grew up in Beaufort and attended the school founded by her paternal grandmother, Abbie Holmes Christensen,[6] an abolitionist who moved from Boston to Beaufort and started the Port Royal Agricultural School, known locally as the Shanklin School, to educate freed slaves after the Union army occupied Beaufort early in the Civil War.[2][1][8] Her grandfather, Niels Christensen,[6] was a Union soldier in the Civil War and served as superintendent of the Beaufort National Cemetery from 1870–76.[9]

Head had three siblings — a younger sister, Andrea (Andy) Christensen Rawson,[6] who became a published poet in her later years; a younger brother, Stratton Christensen,[6] who was the youngest man ever elected to the South Carolina legislature before he was lost at sea while serving as a Navy ensign in June 1942; and an older brother, Niels Christensen III.[6]

In her adolescence, she was sent to Boston to live with her maternal grandparents Solomon Piper Stratton[7] and Annie Wales Stratton and to attend The Cambridge School, though she spent her summers and vacations in Beaufort with her family.[2] Head was a writer from an early age,[3] and completed her first book at age 8. After graduating from high school, she attended Antioch College, Ohio,[3] and studied social work,[3] as part of which she had work experience in an orphanage, a hospital and a reformatory.[2][3] She was already working as a freelance writer when she met her first husband, engineer and inventor Howard Head, in December 1938. They married on February 26, 1939,[10] and had a daughter. Head divorced her husband in 1944, and later married Stanley F. Morse, with whom she had a second daughter.[2]

Head sold her first piece of fiction to Cosmopolitan when she was 28.[3][11] After her first marriage ended, she continued to write to support herself and her daughter. In 1946, Cosmopolitan used Head's name in their advertisements promoting the magazine to women readers as "filled with the world's greatest emotional writing",[12][13] saying, "she [the reader] is newly aware of the wonder and beauty of living, thanks to a beautifully told story by Ann Head";[12] "Ann Head's new story in Cosmopolitan Magazine has stirred her impressionable mind."[13]

Head wrote short stories,[14][15][16] novelettes, and serials with "charm and gaiety"[16] for magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, McCall's, and Good Housekeeping.[11] Her goal was to write one story a month in hopes of selling at least three per year.[2]

When the fiction magazine market dried up in the late 1950s she turned to writing books and had four novels published. Her books were published in hard cover and then paperback in many countries. McGraw-Hill, the publishers of her first novel, Fair with Rain (1957), promoted it by sending to book review editors an engraved invitation to the wedding of Angela to David Blair, followed by a handwritten postcard informing them that the wedding was off, and finally, a copy of the novel with a covering letter from a McGraw-Hill representative.[17] The novel is written in the first person, from the point of view of Janet Blair, a mother of four children, the oldest of whom (David) is away at college, and writes to say he is bringing a girl (Angela) home.[15] One reviewer, comparing Head to Betty MacDonald, described it as "a book full of sharp humor, very well assembled",[14] although he thought that Head wrote with "a rambling style".[14] Other reviewers said the book "maintains a light, swift pace ... breezily omitting all dull details";[18] "Ann Head's humor is ingratiating, and she writes of family life with a whimsicality that never descends to ickiness";[19] "recommended when you feel like meeting a pleasant and shrewdly observed family".[20]

Although Fair with Rain received positive reviews, one reviewer felt that Head's second novel, Always in August (Doubleday, 1961), was a "vast improvement".[21] Set on a plantation in South Carolina,[11][21] it is told retrospectively[21][22] in the first person[11] by the main character, Lucy.[11][21][22] Reviewers described it as "a tense romance" with "a good bit of drama .. and several hankies-ful of tears";[22] "primarily a romance but with a nicely sustained quality of suspense throughout."[23] It received a largely positive response, although one critic said it had "a prosaic plot, written in a stilted style."[24] Other reviewers found some faults: one reviewer considered the heroine "an apologetic door-mat [who] loses admiration if not sympathy by her whimpering",[23] while another thought the villain, Gloria, was unconvincing, saying, "there just doesn't seem to be that much substance there."[11] It was recommended to those who "enjoy entertainment mildly flavoured with tragedy",[25] and its author was described as "skilled in descriptive ability and in setting atmospheres",[26] who "writes of [the South] with [] love and understanding."[23]

Everyone Adored Cara (Doubleday, 1963)

Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones (Putnam, 1967) became her best-known work and was made into a movie for television in 1971.[27] It was first published as an adult novel, and shortly afterwards marketed towards adolescents.[28] In the early 1970s, Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones was included in the curricula and libraries of some schools, and was popular as an ' "adolescent novel" ... dealing with adolescent problems.'[29] There were some calls to remove it from schools due to its subject matter.[30] It was republished by Signet Books and was in print until recently.  

Head taught a creative writing class at Beaufort High School, where she mentored a student named Pat Conroy, who later became a famous novelist.[2][4] The two spent much time together, and Conroy's autobiography included a chapter about Ann titled "Cookbook (My First Novelist)", noting, “Every time I sell a book, I put a rose on her grave.”[31]

Head died suddenly May 7, 1968, after a cerebral aneurysm at age 52. She was buried the next day at the Parish Church of St. Helena in Beaufort.[2][4]

• Works by Ann Head at Faded Page (Canada)