Borden Deal was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 novelist and short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

.

Born in Pontotoc

Pontotoc, Mississippi

Pontotoc is a city in Pontotoc County, Mississippi, United States. Pontotoc is west of the much larger city of Tupelo. The population was 5,625 at the 2010 census...

, Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

, Deal attended Macedonia Consolidated High School, after which he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps

Civilian Conservation Corps

The Civilian Conservation Corps was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18–25. A part of the New Deal of President Franklin D...

 and fought forest fires in the Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...

. Before he began writing, his checkered career included work on a showboat

Showboat

A showboat, or show boat, was a form of theater that traveled along the waterways of the United States, especially along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers . A showboat was basically a barge that resembled a long, flat-roofed house, and in order to move down the river, it was pushed by a small tugboat...

, hauling sawdust for a lumber mill, harvesting wheat, a position as auditor for the United States Department of Labor

United States Department of Labor

The United States Department of Labor is a Cabinet department of the United States government responsible for occupational safety, wage and hour standards, unemployment insurance benefits, re-employment services, and some economic statistics. Many U.S. states also have such departments. The...

, a telephone solicitor, copywriter, and an anti-aircraft fire control instructor in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, on the Atlantic coast. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 165,521. It is a principal city of the South Florida metropolitan area, which was home to 5,564,635 people at the 2010...

.

In 1946, Deal enrolled in The University of Alabama

University of Alabama

The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....

 in Tuscaloosa

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Tuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west central Alabama . Located on the Black Warrior River, it is the fifth-largest city in Alabama, with a population of 90,468 in 2010...

. While there he published his first short story, "Exodus". His creative writing professor was Hudson Strode

Hudson Strode

Hudson Strode was an author and professor of creative writing at the University of Alabama. He taught at the University of Alabama from 1916 until his retirement in 1963. His creative writing classes gained international fame for the literary successes achieved by his students. Strode’s students...

. He received his Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 degree within three years, then enrolled in Mexico City College

Mexico City College

Mexico City College was founded in 1940, as an English speaking junior college in Mexico City, Mexico.In 1946 the college switched to a 4 year Bachelor of Arts degree-awarding institution, then changed its name to University of the Americas in 1963 and in 1968 to Universidad de las Americas,...

 for graduate study.

It was not until 1956 that Deal decided to become a full-time writer. Among the pseudonyms he used were Loyse Deal, Lee Borden, and Michael Sunga.

A prolific writer, Deal penned twenty-one novels and more than one hundred short stories, many of which appeared in McCall's

McCall's

McCall's was a monthly American women's magazine that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. It was established as a small-format magazine called The Queen in 1873...

, Collier's, Saturday Review, and Good Housekeeping

Good Housekeeping

Good Housekeeping is a women's magazine owned by the Hearst Corporation, featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, health as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Housekeeping Seal," popularly known as the...

. His work has been translated into twenty different languages. A major theme in his canon is man's mystical attachment to the earth and his quest for land, inspired by his family's loss of their property during the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

. The majority of his work is set in the small hamlets of the Deep South

Deep South

The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...

.

His novel The Insolent Breed served as the basis for the Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 A Joyful Noise

A Joyful Noise

A Joyful Noise is a musical with a book by Edward Padula and music and lyrics by Oscar Brand and Paul Nassau. The 1966 Broadway production was a flop but introduced choreographer Michael Bennett in his Broadway debut....

.

Deal was married twice and had four children. He died of a heart attack

Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

 in Sarasota, Florida

Sarasota, Florida

Sarasota is a city located in Sarasota County on the southwestern coast of the U.S. state of Florida. It is south of the Tampa Bay Area and north of Fort Myers...

.

Selected bibliography

• Walk through the Valley, 1956
• Dunbar's Cove, 1957
• Search for Surrender, 1957
• Killer in the Mansion, 1957
• Secret of Sylvia, 1958
• Devil's Whispers, 1961
• The Spangled Road, 1962
• Antaeus
  Antaeus (short story)
  Antaeus is a short story by Borden Deal. It is named after the mythological figure Antaeus, a giant who was unconquerable as long as he touched the ground....
  
  , 1962
• The Loser, 1964
• The Tobacco Men, 1965
• A Long Way to Go, 1965
• The Advocate, 1968
• Interstate, 1970
• The Winner, 1973
• The Other Room, 1974
• Bluegrass, 1976
• Legend of the Bluegrass, 1977
• Adventure, 1978
• The Taste of Watermelon,1979
• There Were Also Strangers, 1985

External links

• The Mississippi Writers Page Biographical Note (Department of English, University of Mississippi)
• The Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project Article, including photo and portrait of the author, as well as extensive bibliographic details (Starkville High School, Starkville, Mississippi)
• The FictionMags Index; Stories, Listed by Author Bibliographical listings; Periodicals
• The Big Bajor Official Website Official website for a short film based on Borden Deal's short story, The Big Baoor, about a young gypsy woman trying to swindle a fortune from a country spinster.