Early life

Born in Harvey, Illinois, Thornburg graduated from the University of Iowa

University of Iowa

The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...

 with a Fine Arts degree. He worked in a variety of jobs before devoting himself to writing full-time (or at least in tandem with his cattle farm in the Ozarks) in 1973.

Writing

His 1976 novel Cutter and Bone

Cutter and Bone

Cutter and Bone is a 1976 thriller novel by Newton Thornburg about a Vietnam veteran, Alex Cutter, who tries to convince his friend, Richard Bone, that Bone witnessed a murder. It was adapted to film by director Ivan Passer as Cutter's Way in 1981--starring John Heard as Cutter, Jeff Bridges as...

was filmed in 1981 as Cutter's Way

Cutter's Way

Cutter's Way is a 1981 thriller directed by Ivan Passer. The film stars Jeff Bridges, John Heard, and Lisa Eichhorn. The screenplay was by Jeffrey Alan Fiskin, based on the novel Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg....

. The New York Times called Cutter and Bone "the best novel of its kind for ten years." Another novel-to film Beautiful Kate

Beautiful Kate

Beautiful Kate is a 2009 Australian film directed by Rachel Ward and starring Rachel Griffiths, Bryan Brown, Sophie Lowe and Ben Mendelsohn. Rachel Ward adapted the script from a 1982 novel of the same name by Newton Thornburg; this was the first novel by Thornburg used for a movie since Cutter's Way...

was filmed in Australia in 2009 and starred Bryan Brown and Ben Mendelsohn. It was directed by Rachel Ward, who is Bryan Brown's real-life wife.