Herman Wouk, who died Friday at the age of 103, was an Orthodox Jewish author whose literary career spanned nearly seven decades and who helped usher Judaism into the American mainstream.
Wouk was the author of two dozen novels and works of nonfiction, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Caine Mutiny" from 1951, which was a fixture on best-seller lists for two years, and the best-selling "Marjorie Morningstar" from 1955. Both books were later adapted for the screen. His novels "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" both became successful television miniseries. By the mid-1950s, Wouk's popular and financial success as an American Jewish novelist was unmatched.
Even more unusual for a writer of Wouk's celebrity was his Orthodox observance and treatment of Jewish religious practice in his writing. Wouk embodied the new postwar possibilities for American Jews and his writing was both cause and effect of the normalization of Judaism within the larger American Judeo-Christian tradition.
When he appeared on the cover of Time in 1955, the magazine described Wouk's blend of worldly success and Jewish religious observance as paradoxical.
Read Full Article »