Herbert Clyde Lewis Author

Born in Brooklyn in 1909, Herbert Clyde Lewis worked as a reporter in New Jersey, China, and New York City before publishing his first novel, Gentleman Overboard, in 1937. His second and third novels, Spring Offensive and Season's Greetings, both suffered from bad timing -- the first published days before the German Blitzkrief, the second just before Pearl Harbor. Though nominated for an Academy Award for best original story in 1947, Lewis was blacklisted from Hollywood and he died, broke and alone, in a cheap Greenwich Village hotel in 1950 at the age of 41. His work is now being rediscovered, with new editions of his books being published in over a dozen countries so far.

Kathleen Rooney is the author of Reading with Oprah: The Book Club that Changed America, a memoir, and a collection of short stories. Her fifth novel, Man Overboard! was published in July 2026.