J. J. McCurry is the loving son and product of a WWII Marine Corps sergeant who, after serving on the beaches of the South Pacific, returned home to his native state of Ohio in an effort to reclaim his life, that part not entirely lost on the shores of Iwo Jima and numerous other islands, and of the woman who selflessly helped him through his lengthy time of struggle. This work in its effort, while not necessarily representative of what he may have thought and desired, stands nevertheless a memorial to him, for it is, through its author, a byproduct of all that happened to him.
The desire to write fiction must come from somewhere. It is not a normal desire leading to a normal occupation. It requires dedication and sacrifice not unlike that of a soldier, and it is to those battlefields on which my father fought so long ago I believe I owe that desire.
Those battlefields, I believe, led to other things as well, one being an insatiably restless sense of adventure leading to lives in New York City, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Fe. When not writing and providing for corporal needs, I find myself most at home in distant cities as well as the farthest flung backcountries of the American West, the farther and deeper the better. This I do alone without worry or care and to my growing pleasure and delight.
Currently, I reside in Sonoma County, California, but that could change at anytime. Lately, I've been eyeing a new life north in Portland, Oregon. Life is just too short, you know, to stay in one place forever. Consequestly, I have found myself remaining a single man throughout it. My reading runs from history and phiosophy through economics and anthropology to fiction and Americana. Favorite author? It would have to be Wallace Stegner.