George Mandel

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For the diplomat, see George Mantello. For the politician, see Georges Mandel.

George Mikali Mandel (11 February 1920 – 13 February 2021) was an American author and early writer of the Beat Generation.[1] His novels, interviews, novellas, cartoons and short stories have been carried by major print magazines and collections. He has also contributed key elements to screenplays for Hollywood films and was active as a comic artist once.[2]

Life and career[]

Mandel was born in New York City in February 1920.[1] He was educated at the Pratt Institute, The Art Students League of New York and The New School. Before the war, Mandel was a cartoonist whose drawings established the first masked female comicbook hero: The Woman in Red. He did a tour of duty during World War II, and was a Purple Heart veteran of multiple wounds for four WWII campaigns.

In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.[3]

The National World War II Museum added to its collection his essay "Men Weep," which he contributed in September 2014. It is an account of his service and his reaction to the Battle of the Bulge.

Mandel died New York City in February 2021, two days after turning 101.[4]

Works[]

His first book, Flee the Angry Strangers (1952), was one of the first Beat novels. His subsequent works include The Breakwater (1960), a coming-of-age novel and Proustian examination of pre-war Coney Island; a 1961 war novel Into the Woods of the World, and The Wax Boom (1962), another war novel. His novella Scapegoats (1970) is a commentary on New York City's racial tension and urban renewal. He further explored the theme in Crocodile Blood (1985), an epic about the rape of a native American Seminole and the rising complex of cultures across three generations in Florida. His early short story "The Beckoning Sea" was included in the 1958 anthology Protest: The Beat Generation and the Angry Young Men.[5]

A darkly humorous piece, "Adjustments", appeared in a 1963 Alfred Hitchcock horror anthology[6] and short story "The Day the Time Changed" in a 1965 Saturday Evening Post. Also two cartoon books have been published: Beatville U.S.A. (1961) and Borderline Cases (1962).

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Varner, Paul (2012-06-21). Historical Dictionary of the Beat Movement. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810873971.
  2. ^ "George Mandel". Lambiek.net. Retrieved 21 March 2021.
  3. ^ "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest", New York Post, January 30, 1968
  4. ^ Comics.org: George Mandel (b. 1920)
  5. ^ Feldman, Gene and Gartneberg, Max (editors) (1958). Protest: The Beat Generation and the Angry Young Men. New York: Citadel Press
  6. ^ Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories My Mother Never Told Me [ghost edited by Robert Arthur] ed. Alfred Hitchcock (Random House, 1963)
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