by Peter H. McCracken (2000)
HAVIGHURST, WALTER [EDWIN] (1901-1994). Walter Havighurst is known primarily as a historian of the Midwest, but he also wrote fiction, much of it influenced by his experiences at sea in the 1920s. Havighurst worked as a deckhand on Great Lakes freighters and Pacific lumber schooners before going to college and served in the merchant marine before completing graduate school. His first novel, Pier 17 (1935), is about a young sailor with ambitions of writing fiction who gets caught up in a shipping strike in Seattle. The Quiet Shore (1937) and Signature of Time (1949) both describe life on Lake Erie. No Homeward Course (1941) concerns a German sea raider. The Long Ships Passing (1942), a regional history of the Great Lakes for which he is best known, draws on his deckhand experiences aboard Great Lakes freighters.
The Quiet Shore (1937)
Signature of Time (1949)
keywords: white, male