Richard McKenna

Richard Milton McKenna (May 9, 1913 – November 1, 1964) was an American sailor and writer. In the late 1950s, he began writing science fiction stories, and is best known for his 1963 historical novel The Sand Pebbles, which tells the story of an American sailor serving aboard a gunboat on the Chinese Yangtze River in 1925.

Biography

Early life McKenna was born in Mountain Home, Idaho, on May 9, 1913.

Seeking more opportunities than could be found in such a rural part of the country at the height of the Great Depression, McKenna joined the U.S. Navy in 1931 at the age of 18. He served for 22 years, including 10 years of active sea duty. He served in World War II and the Korean War.

He retired as a Chief Machinist's Mate.

Writing career McKenna began his writing career publishing science fiction, and starting in 1958 he regularly attended the annual Milford Writer's Workshop for science fiction writers. His first science fiction story "Casey Agonistes" immediately established him as a writer to be watched when it appeared in the September 1958 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Only six of his science fiction tales were published during his lifetime, but six more were published posthumously.

McKenna's major work was The Sand Pebbles (1963), a 597-page novel later made into the well-known 1966 film of the same title. The protagonist was an enlisted career sailor on a U.S. Navy river gunboat named the San Pablo in China during the 1920s. McKenna himself served aboard a river gunboat on the Yangtze Patrol, but about ten years after the events in his novel and of more modern construction (San Pablo was an ancient gunboat seized from the Spanish in 1898). The Sand Pebbles won the $10,000 1963 Harper Prize Novel and was chosen as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection.

Death and legacy McKenna died of a heart attack at his Chapel Hill N.C. home on November 4, 1964, at age 51.

In 1966, The Sand Pebbles was adapted as a film of the same name starring Steve McQueen and Candice Bergen.

His childhood school in Mountain Home was renamed the Richard M. McKenna High School in 1999.

In 2015, a biography by Dennis L. Noble, The Sailor's Homer: The Life and Times of Richard McKenna, was published by Naval Institute Press.