The directory «Plots»

Fast Howard
(1914—2003)

Howard Fast, the son of a factory worker, was born in New York City on 11th November, 1914. He dropped out of high school and at the age of 18 published his first novel Two Villages. Fast held strong left-wing views and a large number of his novels dealt with political themes. This included a series of three books on the American Revolutionary War period: Conceived in Liberty (1939), The Unvanquished (1942), and Citizen Tom Paine (1943).

In 1943 Fast joined the American Communist Party and his Marxist views were reflected in the novels that he wrote during this period. This included Freedom Road (1944), a novel of the Reconstruction era; The American (1946) and a fictionalized biography of the radical Illinois governor, John Peter Altgeld.

In 1950 Fast was ordered to appear before the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Fast refused to name fellow members of American Communist Party, claiming that the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution gave them the right to do this. The HUAC and the courts during appeals disagreed and he was sentenced to three months in prison.

Fast was blacklisted but after forming his own publishing company, the Blue Heron Press, he continued write and publish books that reflected his left-wing views. This included Spartacus (1951), an account of the 71 B.C. slave revolt, Silas Timberman (1954), a novel about a victim of McCarthyism and The Story of Lola Gregg (1956), describing the FBI pursuit and capture of a communist trade unionist. Fast also worked as a staff writer for the Daily Worker.

Fast remained loyal to the Communist Party until 1956. The two main reasons for this was the speech made by Nikita Khrushchev exposing the crimes of Joseph Stalin and the decision by the Soviet government to put down the Hungarian Uprising. Fast, like three-quarters of the membership now left the party. The following year he published The Naked God: The Writer and the Communist Party (1957).

The Hollywood Blacklist was ended in 1960 when Dalton Trumbo wrote the screenplay for Fast's novel, Spartacus. Fast himself moved to Hollywood where he wrote several screenplays. However, he continued to write political novels and had considerable commercial success with The Immigrants (1977), Second Generation (1978), The Establishment (1979), The Outsider (1984) and the Immigrant's Daughter (1985). His autobiography, Being Red, was published in 1990.

During his lifetime he published more than 40 novels under his own name and 20 as E.V. Cunningham. Fast also wrote a biography of Josip Tito. His books were translated into 82 different languages and his last novel, Greenwich, was published in 2000.

Howard Fast died in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, on 12th March, 2003.

Grenada Grenadines, 1999, Kirk Douglas as Spartacus

Grenada Grenadines, 1999, Kirk Douglas as Spartacus

Guinea, 2010, Spartacus

Mali, 1994, Kirk Douglas as Spartacus

Umm al Quiwain, 1969, Lentulus Batiatus and Varinia