William March (born William Edward Campbell September 18, 1893 — May 15, 1954) was an American author and a highly decorated US Marine. The author of six novels and four short-story collections, March was a critical success and heralded as "the unrecognized genius of our time", without attaining popular appeal until after his death. His novels intertwine his own personal torment with the conflicts spawned by unresolved class, family, sexual, and racial matters. March often presents characters who, through no fault of their own, are victims of chance, and writes that freedom can only be obtained by being true to one's nature and humanity.
William March was born the eldest son of a poor, itinerant family in and around Mobile, Alabama. His father worked in the lumber industry in South Alabama, and was an occasional heavy drinker who had a fondness for reciting poetry (especially Edgar Allan Poe's) at the dinner table. His mother (whose maiden name was Susan March) was probably better educated and taught the children to read and write. Neither of them seemed to have supported young March's literary efforts — he later stated he had composed a 10,000 line poem at the age of 12, but had burned the manuscript. Having 10 other siblings, March was afforded no privileges; by the time he was 14 the family moved to Lockhart, Alabama, preventing him from going to high school. Lockhart would later become the imaginary Hodgetown, Pearl County, in The Tallons (1936). Instead, March received occasional schooling probably in one-room schools such as was common in sawmill towns. He found employment in the office of a lumber mill.
Two years later March had returned to Mobile and found employment in a local law office. By 1913, he had saved enough money to take a high school course at Valparaiso University in Indiana and later returned to Alabama to study law at the University of Alabama. He thrived as a student but lacked the necessary tuition to complete his law degree. In the fall of 1916, he moved to a small boarding house in Brooklyn, finding work as a clerk in the law firm of Nevins, Brett and Kellog, in Manhattan.
On June 25, 1917, March volunteered for the U.S. Marines, a little over a month after the U.S. entered World War I. On January 7, 1918, after completing Marine recruit training on Parris Island, March joined the 133d Company in the Marine barracks at Quantico, Virginia. Along with two other future World War I literary figures, John W. Thomason (Fix Bayonets) and Laurence Stallings (What Price Glory?), March embarked on USS Von Steuben at Philadelphia. March reached France in March 1918, serving as a sergeant in Co F, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 4th Brigade of Marines, Second Division of the U.S. Army Expeditionary Force.
March's company took part in every major engagement in which American troops were involved, incurring heavy casualties. As a member of the 5th Marines, March saw his first action on the old Verdun battlefield near Les Eparges and shortly thereafter at Belleau Wood, where he was gassed and wounded in the head and shoulder. He returned to the front in time for the offensive at Soissons and the Battle of Saint-Mihiel. March was twice promoted and was a sergeant when he was assigned to French troops in the Blanc Mont area, on "statistical duties."
During the assault on Blanc Mont, March "left shelter to rescue wounded, then joined in the fighting, and, although he had been wounded [by machine-gun fire], refused to be evacuated until the Germans had been repulsed." As a result of his actions, March received the French Croix de Guerre with Palm and the Army Distinguished Service Cross for valor (the Distinguished Service Cross is the second highest Army decoration, next only to the Medal of Honor). A curious detail emerges from the account of his war experiences that would find their way into his fiction: though it appears he was never gassed, upon his return from the war he told people that he was and that he only had a short time to live; a number of characters in Company K suffer and die after mustard gas attacks.
Official citations
The official citation to the Croix de Guerre reads as follows:
"During the operations in Blanc Mont region, October 3-4th, 1918, he left a shelter to rescue the wounded. On October 5, during a counter-attack, the enemy having advanced to within 300 meters of the first aid station, he immediately entered the engagement and though wounded refused to be evacuated until the Germans were thrown back."
The citation for March's Distinguished Service Cross (under his birthname William E. Campbell) reads as follows:
"The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to William E. Campbell, Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism while serving with the 43d Company, 5th Regiment (Marines), 2d Division, A.E.F. in action near Blanc Mont, France, October 3—5, 1918. On October 3 and 4, while detailed on statistical work, Sergeant Campbell voluntarily assisted in giving first aid to the wounded. On October 5, when the enemy advanced within 300 yards of the dressing station, he took up a position in the lines, helping in defense. Although twice wounded, he remained in action under heavy fire until the enemy had been repulsed."
When the Navy Cross, the United States Navy's second highest award for valor after the Medal of Honor, was established in 1919, March received that award as well (326 Marines who had previously received the Army Distinguished Service Cross in World War I would receive the Navy Cross for the same action). March's citation for the Navy Cross reads similar to that for the Army Distinguished Service Cross.
"The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Sergeant William E. Campbell (MCSN: 89685), United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism while serving with the 43d Company, 5th Regiment (Marines), 2d Division, A.E.F. in action near Blanc Mont, France, October 3—5, 1918. On October 3 and 4, while detailed on statistical work, Sergeant Campbell voluntarily assisted in giving first aid to the wounded. On October 5 when the enemy advanced within 300 yards of the dressing station, he took up a position in the lines, helping in defense. Although twice wounded, he remained in action under heavy fire until the enemy had been repulsed."
In 1919, March returned to civilian life, but was marred by bouts of anxiety and depression, a common occurrence with many returning veterans. One particular incident continued to haunt him, and he told it to a number of friends: suddenly finding himself face to face with a young, blond German soldier, he bayoneted the German through the throat and watched him die up close, an event recounted in Company K, there transferred to Private Manuel Burt. In the 2004 film by the same name as the book, March's character is Private Joseph Delaney. March, significantly, suffered hysterical attacks at different moments in his life related to the throat and the eyes. He rarely spoke of his war experiences or awards, though he was later noted to always take his medals with him and to tell war stories on occasion.
March stayed briefly with his family in Tuscaloosa, then found work with a Mobile law firm. Soon, however, he became the personal secretary of John B. Waterman, for whose newly-founded and quickly growing shipping company, the Waterman Steamship Corporation, he would eventually become vice-president. In 1926, the company opened up an office in Memphis, Tennessee, which March supervised; he spent two years in Memphis and become involved in the local theatre scene. All the while he traveled the country on business trips, often accompanied by his friend and business associate J.P. Case, who recalls that March's rooms were usually littered with papers and books, many of them on psychology: March was reading Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler intensively. In 1928, March moved again, to New York, where he took creative writing classes at Columbia University and began writing short stories.
In 1933, while living in New York, March finished his first novel, Company K. Encompassing much of his war time experience, it was critically praised and placed him on the literary map. A year later, while living in Hamburg, Germany, he finished his second novel, Come in at the Door, his first novel of the "Pearl County" series of novels and short stories, set in the mythical towns of Hodgetown, Baycity, and Reedyville. In Hamburg he witnessed the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime and prophetically proposed the future that was soon to be in a short story, "Personal Letter." March was fearful to publish the story, as he was already well-established as an anti-militarist author and was afraid to place his German friends and associates in undue peril.
Two years later, following a move to London, March finished his third novel, The Tallons, the second in his "Pearl County" series. In 1937, he returned to the US and within two years resigned his position to concentrate more on his writing, which by then was a full-time occupation. In 1943, he completed his most ambitious and critically acclaimed novel, The Looking-Glass, the final book in his "Pearl County" series and called by some "his finest literary achievement."
In 1947, after years of depression from his experiences in the war and a continuing bout of writer's block, March suffered a nervous breakdown. He briefly returned to Mobile to recuperate and made many return visits to New York to settle his affairs. On one such visit in 1949, March happened upon the gallery of noted New York art dealer Klaus Perls. Unbeknownst to March, this visit would prove a turning point in his life. Perls, accustomed to dealing with creative personalities, showed an acceptance to March that he had not felt since his days of therapy in London. Through Perls, March was able to talk openly about his creative process, using Perls as a sounding board to his ideas. Perls also introduced March to a world of other artists, and in the works of Pablo Picasso and notably Chaim Soutine, March found a kinship and connection, as March and Soutine both displayed paranoid and schizophrenic tendencies. March returned Perls' friendship with a steady acquisition of works by Soutine, Picasso, Georges Rouault, and Joseph Glasco. March continued this friendship with routine visits to New York between 1949 and 1953, until ailing health prevented him from further travels.
In late 1950, March permanently moved from Mobile and purchased a Creole Cottage on Dumaine Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It was here that he composed his last two novels, October Island and The Bad Seed. March viewed the latter novel as a meager accomplishment, but it ironically gained the most praise and success of any of his novels, selling over a million copies in one year, launching a long-running Broadway hit penned by the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Maxwell Anderson and a 1956 movie directed by Mervyn LeRoy.
On March 25, 1954 March suffered a mild heart attack and was still recovering when The Bad Seed was published on April 8. He was discharged from the hospital on April 24, but after only three weeks, on the night of May 15, 1954, he died in his sleep of a second and more severe heart attack.
March had lived long enough to see his final novel published to much acclaim, but he would not know the full extent of its success. On the morning of March's death, the following paragraph was discovered in his typewriter. Entitled "Poor Pilgrim, Poor Stranger", it was presumably written after his discharge from the hospital, and reads:
Commenting on March's complete body of work, the legendary British-American journalist and broadcaster Alistair Cooke wrote that March was "the most underrated of all contemporary American writers of fiction", citing his unique style as "classic modern" and stating that March was "the unrecognized genius of our time." Cooke himself championed the anthology A William March Omnibus, which was published two years after March died. As of 2009, only The Bad Seed and Company K are still in print.
Novels
Company K
Company K, published in 1933, was hailed as a masterpiece by critics and writers alike and has often been compared to Erich Maria Remarque's classic anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front for its hopeless view of war. University of Alabama professor of American literature and author Philip Beidler wrote, in his introduction to a republication of the book in 1989, that "the act of writing Company K, in effect reliving his very painful memories, was itself an act of tremendous courage, equal to or greater than whatever it was that earned him the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross and French Croix de Guerre." Contemporary critics praised the powerful effect of March's novel technique of multiple points of view; already in 1935 (in an essay on new techniques in the novel), John Frederick wrote in The English Journal, "The cumulative effect...is one of the most powerful and memorable to be found in the whole range of writing about the war." In 2004, Alabama filmmaker Robert Clem made a feature adaptation of the novel; the movie attracted local interest. The novel has garnered attention as a World War I classic in other languages also: in 1967 it was translated into Italian for editor Longanesi as "Fuoco!" ("Fire!") and in 2008, it was translated into Dutch and published in a series called "The Library of the First World War."
The Bad Seed
The Bad Seed, published in April 1954, was a critical and commercial success, and introduced the iconic character Rhoda Penmark, an eight-year-old sociopath and burgeoning serial killer. The novel became an instant bestseller and was widely praised by critics for its use of suspense and horror. James Kelley writes, for The New York Times Book Review, "The Bad Seed scores a direct hit, either as exposition of a problem or as a work of art. Venturing a prediction and a glance over the shoulder: no more satisfactory novel will be written in 1954 or has turned up in recent memory." Although March lived long enough to see the critical praise bestowed upon the novel, he died before the novel's full impact came to the fore. It went on to sell over a million copies, was nominated for the 1955 National Book Award, was adapted into a successful and long-running Broadway play by Maxwell Anderson, and an Academy Award nominated film directed by Mervyn Leroy.
Short prose
March was an accomplished short story writer and published four collections of stories. The Filipino poet and critic José García Villa regarded March as "the greatest short story writer America has produced." He won four O. Henry Awards for his short stories, tied for the most wins by any author up until that time. The Collected Short Stories of William March collects many of March's short stories from his entire career. The book was published in 1987 by the University of Alabama Press, with an introduction by Rosemary Canfield-Reisman. None of March's story collections are currently in print.
One curious little book with a March story, "The First Sunset", was printed in a limited edition of 150 copies by Cincinnati printer and writer Robert Lowry's Little Man Press.
99 Fables
Six years after March's death, his 99 Fables were published by the University of Alabama Press. March's fables follow those of Aesop: according to a review in The New York Times Book Review, "Mr. March...has picked up where Aesop and Don Marquis left off." The cover won an award at the 1960 Southern Books Competition; the book is not currently in print.
Of paramount importance to scholars is Roy S. Simmonds's "definitive biography of March," The Two Worlds of William March. Simmonds continued the work of his friend Lawrence William Jones, who was working on a March biography but had died in a car accident. Simmonds had only a passing knowledge of March's writing, but became increasingly interested in finishing Jones' work after having read through many of the papers that Jones had left behind, notably the 43-page memoir "Bill March" by New Orleans journalist Clint Bolton.
Although March had intimated that he wished for no biography to be written, the Campbell family, after having read the completed manuscript, gave their approval. At 325 pages, the biography, published in 1984, offers a picture of the anachronistic world and works of William March. It closes on a note of praise:
"The cruel irony of his death, coming at the moment it did, deprived him of the immense satisfaction of the worldwide recognition he would have enjoyed following the success of The Bad Seed. Now March has been almost forgotten. His reputation, however, if little known at present, remains established and secure. Those of us who know, love, and admire his work live in the belief that one day March will be recognized as one of the most remarkable, talented, and shamefully neglected writers that America has produced in this or in any other century."
Simmonds is also the author of William March: An Annotated Checklist, a comprehensive and annotated bibliography of primary and secondary documents pertaining to the life and work of March.
William March/Company K
A documentary film on March entitled William March/Company K (2004) was made by Robert Clem; it includes excerpts from Clem's feature adaptation of Company K and focuses on the effects of March's painful war experience on his later life. The documentary was shown in September at Birmingham, Alabama's Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival and aired on PBS in 2004.
