Lardner, Ring

Ring Lardner was a sharp-witted American humorist who had an amazing ear for malapropisms, idioms, and the lively vernacular of early 20th-century Chicago and later the East Coast. Originally a sports writer for baseball, Lardner branched out to short stories in 1914, when he wrote serial fiction for the Saturday Evening Post. This job lead to him honing the authorial control that lead to him creating three original and beloved fictional characters. They were the baseball player Jack Keefe (who appeared in the Saturday Evening Post stories); later, an unnamed but sarcastic husband; and years later, Fred Gross, an inept detective. His unique, first-person stories held an air of authenticity and daring. Readers loved his work for the style and subjects that transcended the stodgy halls of refined literature, and yet intellectuals mined them for the brilliant irony and cultural criticism. Lardner developed a reputation as a complex writer whose column, nonetheless, was read weekly by the mainstream, not just the experts. Additionally, critics saw immediate value in how Lardner let himself be fascinated by the social microcosm of baseball (with minor leaguers maneuvering to rise in the ranks); he saw in it a parallel to class struggles in America. When he later became an actual Long Island neighbor of American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, he sought to capture in literature the decadence of the American lifestyle. His later work was fiercely critical of shallow attitudes, social climbing, and the tendency for business interests to undermine culture. By 1929, Lardner's rough lifestyle and utter disenchantment with America—as well as a tuberculosis diagnosis—took a toll on his creative output. He had been a binge drinker since his days as Fitzgerald's socialite neighbor. His drinking was fueled by his deep vein of disgust for his own society. His wildly comedic and witty writing belied his own weaknesses, including succumbing to the stress of being financially responsible for his family. Monetary success eventually came in 1930, when he coauthored a musical, “June Moon.” It was fleeting, however; the next years saw him produce a weekly radio column and rehash the Jack Keefe adventures in a 1933 redux of fictional baseball letters, titled Lose with a Smile. He died that year, of a heart attack, on September 25. He was forty-eight years old.