Zollinger, Norman 1921–2000

PERSONAL: Born November 8, 1921, in Chicago, IL; died of pancreatic cancer, February 28, 2000, in Albuquerque, NM; son of Albert (a manufacturer) and Anne (Kennedy) Zollinger; married Gerrie Harte, September 7, 1946 (deceased, 1986); married; wife's name, Ginna; children: (first marriage) Peter, Ann, Robin; (second marriage) Elizabeth, Thomas (stepchildren). Education: Attended Cornell College, 1940–42. Hobbies and other interests: Skiing, backpacking, tennis.

CAREER: Bank messenger in Chicago, IL, 1939–40; AZI, Inc. (manufacturing company), Downers Grove, IL, president and chairman of board of directors, 1945–71; Little Professor Book Center, Albuquerque, NM, owner, 1971–2000. Commissioner and assistant mayor, Downers Grove, 1950–55, president of Community Council, 1965–67; conducted Norman Zollinger's Taos School of Writing during the summer months; taught writing at the University of New Mexico; led workshops for physically challenged service veterans. Military service: U.S. Army Air Force, 1942–45; served in European theater; became first lieutenant; received Air Medal with five oak leaf clusters.

AWARDS, HONORS: Golden Spur Awards, for Riders to Cibola, 1979, and Rage in Chupadera, 1991; Owen Wister Award for lifetime achievement, Western Writers of America, 1999; Southwest Fiction Award and Parris Award, Southwest Writers Workshop.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Riders to Cibola: A Novel, Museum of New Mexico Press (Santa Fe, NM), 1977.

Corey Lane, Ticknor & Fields (New Haven, CT), 1981.

Lautrec, Dutton (New York, NY), 1990.

Rage in Chupadera, 1991.

Not of War Only, Forge (New York, NY), 1994.

Chapultepec: A Novel, Forge (New York, NY), 1995.

Passage to Quivira, Forge (New York, NY), 1995.

Meridian: A Novel of Kit Carson's West, Forge (New York, NY), 1997.

The Road to Santa Fe, Forge (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Norman Zollinger was a prolific writer of Western novels until he lost his battle with cancer at the age of seventy-eight. As Paul Logan noted in an obituary in the Albuquerque Journal, it was author Tony Hillerman who called Zollinger a "Renaissance Man." Hillerman told Logan that Zollinger was a "warmhearted man" and "the most intelligent man I've ever known."

In 1971 Zollinger left a high-paying job with the family business he had brought into the era of technology to pursue his love of writing. He and his wife, Gerrie, moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico and opened a bookstore they called the Little Professor Book Center. He taught writing at the University of New Mexico and also held workshops for physically challenged veterans while writing his novels, including his prize winners, Riders to Cibola: A Novel and Rage in Chupadera.

Zollinger's stories are sagas that follow Mexico's quest for independence, and his heroes and heroines are the revolutionaries, cowboys, soldiers, Native Americans, and pioneer women who forged the history of the region. The protagonist of his Meridian: A Novel of Kit Carson's West is cartographer Bradford Stone, who travels with scout Kit Carson and John C. Fremont and maps their journeys during the westward expansion. Even the inexperienced Bradford soon realizes that Fremont's purpose is to capture land, specifically California, for himself. A Publishers Weekly contributor described Meridian as "a richly detailed and colorful tapestry of history, adventure, discovery, romance and suspense."

The Road to Santa Fe, which was published posthumously, is a contemporary story that centers around Rick Garcia's run for governor. The district attorney has recently lost his wife to suicide and is working on a case involving the deaths of three children as a result of a mining company release of poisons into the drinking water supply. Booklist reviewer Wes Lukowsky commended Zollinger for his understanding of regional politics, "itself a fascinating mix of Old West individualism and contemporary chicanery." Zollinger left unfinished a sequel to Meridian.

Logan, whose writing career was encouraged by Zollinger, wrote that his mentor "was a mainstream novelist who set his stories in the West. If someone said his books were regional, he insisted that his region was the human heart." Zollinger's first wife predeceased him, and he was survived by his second wife, Ginna.

Zollinger once wrote: "I wrote as a college student and as a young man, and was published in newspapers and college quarterlies. I abandoned writing after World War II for a career in business, and returned to it when I became disenchanted with manufacturing. I moved to New Mexico in 1971 to open a bookstore and complete Riders to Cibola.

"My novel is a three-generation story of a ranch family in central New Mexico as seen through the eyes of an illegal alien, an orphaned Mexican who holds things together for his adopted family through wars, depressions, and droughts. It is, I hope, straightforward narrative writing. Any messages—there might be a small one on brotherhood and tolerance—come from the characters and the action, not from the author."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1994, Joe Collins, review of Not of War Only, p. 1774; October 15, 1995, Margaret Flanagan, review of Chapultepec: A Novel, p. 387; February 15, 2002, Wes Lukowsky, review of The Road to Santa Fe, p. 994.

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2001, review of The Road to Santa Fe, p. 1452.

Publishers Weekly, April 20, 1990, Sybil Steinberg, review of Lautrec, p. 60; May 19, 1997, review of Meridian: A Novel of Kit Carson's West, p. 66.

ONLINE

Chapala.com, http://www.chapala.com/ (January 15, 2006), Alice Hathaway, review of Chapultepec.

OBITUARIES

PERIODICALS

Albuquerque Journal, February 29, 2000, Paul Logan, "Norman Zollinger was 'Renaissance Man.'"