T R Pearson
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TR Pearson (Thomas Reid) was born in 1956 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina,where he later attended University at North Carolina State, where he gained a BA and then and MA in English. He went on to teach at Raleigh, North Carolina at Peace College. He started a Ph.D. in Pennsylvania, but left soon after and returned to North Carolina.
After returning, he worked as a carpenter and a housepainter while he began writing his first 2 novels, A Short History of a Small Place and Off for the Sweet Hereafter. Neither was published until he moved to New York, in 1985, where both of his first 2 novels were published by Linden Press.
His novels are set in the South, in an imaginary small town near Winston Salem (Neely)or, in his recent novels, in the Appalachian areas of Virginia, where he now lives. His writing captures a uniquely Southern social order, outlook and voice and has been compared to Mark Twain and William Faulkner.
The author of nine novels, including Polar and Blue Ridge, both New York Times Notable Books, and the classic A Short History of a Small Place. He is married and lives in Virginia.
- A Short History of a Small Place. New York, Linden Press, 1985
- Off for the Sweet Hereafter. New York, Linden Press, 1986
- The Last of How It Was. New York, Linden Press, 1987
- Call and Response. New York Linden Press, 1989
- Gospel Hour. New York, William Morrow, 1991
- Cry Me a River. New York, Henry Holt, 1993
- Blue Ridge. New York, Viking, 2000
- Polar. New York, Viking, 2002
- True Cross. New York, Viking, 2003
He also wrote the (uncredited) screenplays for The Rainmaker (1997) and The Runaway Jury (1998)