Ira B. Nadel isn’t entirely fond of the subject of his latest biography. Previously, Nadel explored the lives of such estimable cultural figures as Leonard Cohen, David Mamet and Ezra Pound. But in Leon Uris: Life of a Best Seller (University of Texas Press), he examines a mass culture novelist and screenwriter with little pretense to literary greatness. Cohen, Mamet and, especially, Pound all had their failings at one time or another, but no one can accuse them, as Nadel says of Uris, of lousy writing.
An English professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Nadel is amazed that an author he regards as mediocre could have wielded such influence on the imagination of the world. “Uris’s impact intrigued me,” he states at the onset; “how could one who wrote so ineptly still find such a wide and persistent audience?” One answer, of course, is obvious. The general public wanted epic stories on the large events of their epoch and wanted them written in simple, declarative prose. William Faulkner might have been the greater writer, but for most anyone stuck in an airport lounge or gulping down a few pages during a coffee break, Uris was the easier read. And while Faulkner may have fathomed the depths of the Southern psyche, his work had little influence on the course of social change. With Exodus and Trinity, Uris became the propagandist for ideas of Jewish and Irish identity that remain prevalent even today.
Uris benefited from the post-World War II rise of mass-market paperback publishing but also from his relationship with Hollywood. Nadel seems to think there was something novel in the 1950s about popular fiction being adapted into movies. He is mistaken, but correct in saying that the movies were good to Uris. According to Nadel, Uris’ Battle Cry (1954) was the first time a first-time author was hired by a Hollywood studio to write his own screenplay; with the success of the novel Exodus (1958) Uris signed an unusual four-picture deal with Columbia. Later, his QB VII (1970) became the first TV mini series.
Uris was not an artist of broad sympathy but an author whose moral purpose was often admirable if one sided. He helped turn the Holocaust into a household word and identified its tragedy with the cause of Israel, yet dismissed any claims by Arabs to Palestine. His writing was concerned with action and events, not introspection, and for that he gained the animus of critics and academics favoring more reflective, formally challenging work. The public disagreed and voted with their dollars for Uris’ old-fashioned storytelling about the modern world.
