A male and navigator on the inland waterways, a graduate of Phillips Exeter and of Harvard, RICHARD BISSELL moved out of a pajama factory in Iowa into national prominence when the musical comedy, The Pajama Game, which was drawn from his book, 7½ Cents, hit Broadway. Recently he went to London to help with the opening of the London production, and here are his impressions.
A graduate of Exeter and Harvard, RICHARD BlSSELLknows our inland waterways — the Ohio, the Monongahela, and the Mississippi (on all of which he worked as a mate or a pilot) — as well as Mark Twain knew them. From this river experience came the source material for his first novel, A Stretch on the River. He is the coauthor of The Pajama Game, a highly successful musical comedy based on his second novel, 7½ Cents; and his third, High Water, made its debut last autumn under the Atlantic-Little, Brown imprint.
A graduate of Exeter and Harvard, RICHARD BISSELL knows our inland waterways — the Ohio, the Monongahela, and the Mississippi (on all of which he worked as a mate or a pilot) — as well as Mark Twain knew them. From this river experience came the source material for his first novel, A Stretch on the River. He is the coauthor of The Pajama Game, a highly successful musical comedy based on his second novel, 7½ Cents; and his third, High Water, made its debut last autumn under the Atlantic-Little, Brown imprint.
A graduate of Exeter and Harvard, RICHARD BISSELL knows our inland waterways — the Ohio, the Missouri, and the Mississippi (on all of which he holds a pilot’s license) — as well as Mark Twain knew them. From this river experience came the source material for his first novel, A Stretch on the River; his second, if 7½ Cents, the story of a strike in a pajama factory, was converted into a highly successful musical comedy, The Pajama Game; and his third, High Water, made its debut in September under the Atlantic-Little, Brown imprint.
A graduate of Exeter and Harvard, RICHARD BISSELL knows our inland waterways — the Ohio,the Missouri,and the Mississippi (on all of which he holds a pilot’s license) —as well as Mark Twain knew them seventy-five years ago. From this river experience came the source material for his first novel, A Stretch on the River; his second, 7 1/2 Cents, the story of a strike in a pajama factory,has been converted into a highly successful musical comedy, The Pajama Game; and his third, High Water, will make its debut in September under the AtlanticLittle,Brown imprint.
“When I was a kid,”writes RICHARD BISSELL, “I floated down the river twice and bummed the freights home.” Then, after graduating from Phillips Exeter and Harvard, he returned to Iowa and again went on the river. He worked on the Monongahela, on the Ohio, the Missouri, and the Upper and Lower Mississippi, first as deckhand and then as mate and pilot. The story which follows is taken from his first novel, A Stretch on the River, which will appear as an Atlantic-Little, Brown book. The Atlantic, which published Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, is happy to find a worthy successor in Dick Bissell.