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Joseph Arnold Hayes, who has also written under the pseudonym Joseph H.
Arnold, was born on Aug. 2, 1918, in Indianapolis, Ind. He is the son of
Harold Joseph and Pearl M. Arnold Hayes. He married Marrijane Johnston
in 1938 and they had three children: Gregory, Jason, and Daniel. He
studied at Indiana University, 1938-41, and is a full-time professional
playwright and novelist. Occasionally he produces Broadway plays as
partner in Erskine and Hayes Productions.
Hayes received the Charles H. Sergel Drama Prize awarded by the
University of Chicago in 1948. He won the Indiana authors Day Award in
fiction for The Desperate Hours, 1955; the Antoinette Perry
(Tony) Award of American Theatre Wing as author and co-producer of the
play, “The Desperate Hours,” 1956; and the Edgar Allen Poe (Edgar) Award
of Mystery Writers of America for the best mystery screenplay, “The
Desperate Hours,” 1965.
Information from
Contemporary Authors
FICTION OUT
OF FACT
by Joseph Hayes
New York Times, January 30, 1955
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At the moment I am writing
this, the newspapers are headlining a story about five guards held
hostage in the Massachusetts state prison. The news accounts
concentrate on the action. But what of the more personal stories
involved? What are the thoughts and emotions of the guards'
waiting wives, their children? And what of the inner struggles of
the "convicts" themselves? No matter how evil or violent in
action, aren't these men human beings, with their own needs,
loves, hungers, fears?
It was out of conjectures such as these that, in the Spring
of 1953, I sat down to write a novel which, when completed, I
titled "The Desperate Hours."
The novel--and the play version of it which opens on Thursday
at the Barrymore Theatre--was based on various news-stories. In
California, in New York state, in Detroit, in Philadelphia,
frightened and dangerous men entered houses, held families captive
in their own homes; these were headline stories, soon forgotten.
Some ended tragically, others did not. The newspapers soon dropped
all reference to them. But what of the people themselves?
Accumulatively, these cold, black-on-white accounts stirred the
question, "What if?" and, in time, I found myself left with a
curious and very strong emotion--a sense of personal
identification with the victims. And also--to my amazement--a
baffling question:
Why? Why had these
events occurred and what possible meaning did they hold? Thinking
about these "cases," I became more and more amazed, finally awed,
by the sense of immense accidentally framing these, and perhaps
all, human situations.
Instead of researching any of the specific "cases," however,
I found it best to let my imagination play with the idea.
Meanwhile, I reached into my own background and found a setting,
the city of Indianapolis, where I was born, a typical city. After
that, it was necessary to probe into my own convictions about
people, ordinary, down-to-earth representative people--what did I
really feel about them? What did I believe about them and how did
they react under stress? Once I could answer that question
honestly, I could begin "research."
Technically, I needed to make my police activity reasonably
authentic--because, from the first, for many reasons, I had no
doubt that I must use some unusual story-frame to intensify and to
counterpoint the action taking place in the invaded and terrorized
home. Out of this so-called "research" emerged an important
character in the story, a deputy sheriff who, caught in a conflict
between his own personal desires and his civilized concern for
others, could represent to some extent my own feelings of disgust,
understanding, anguish and admiration.
Having decided on the frame and the essential conflict, I had
then only one small job--to write the novel (and later, the play
and screenplay). It was a day-and-night job, done at white-heat,
the time limited by necessities imposed by illness in the family.
Curiously enough, I discovered as I wrote that the principal theme
came into focus; the life-and-death struggle between a typical,
law-abiding man, with no knowledge of his own inner resources or
of the precious quality of his way of life, and the twisted,
jungle-like mind of a young criminal, himself a human being and a
victim. It became more and more interesting to explore a mind that
has almost totally escaped the civilizing influences of our
society. (And why are there so many like him today?) This mind
became, as I worked, so complex and cunning that, almost
automatically, the necessary plot-twists and surprises of story
erupted, often to my own astonishment, so that in the end even the
plot itself became something quite distinct from all the other
hostage-stories I had ever encountered.
In the news-stories there was little to suggest what happens
in the invaded and ravaged home: the terror of the family, the
desperation and paradoxes in the criminals, the inter-action of
these characters caught in a situation that, in time, creates its
own momentum, sets its own course. This course, and its ultimate
resolution, seemed for a while to be determined by the warped mind
of the young invader himself. It was he who devised the manner of
holding an entire family not only captive, as in the actual
incidents, but in this case mentally and emotionally hostage--so
that even the civilized man, the father of the family, found
within himself the jungle-urges of revenge and a passion to
murder. How could the young convict manage to do this? This
boy--he is hardly more than that--could do it because, despite all
of his own insecurities and banked-down rages and hatred and
fears, he instinctively understood what "family" could mean. He
could create an atmosphere, as have governments, in which a man
appears
to move freely, to think for himself, to carry on a "normal"
life...while in actuality that man has become a slave. And why?
Because of the deepest and most human concern of all--his love for
his family. Out of this love, stirred so that he recognizes it
himself in all its intensity and depth, comes submission to evil.
I am willing to leave the question there. It is only one of many
that I hope to leave echoing in the minds, and especially the
hearts, of an audience.
The human emotions, only hinted at in the description of
exterior events in a newspaper, and the complexities they suggest
and the personal and social questions they pose, remain, a year
and a half later, vital and interesting to me. Fortunately, I have
been able to communicate my own deep and aching concern--not only
for the characters but for the human plight in general--to
hundreds of thousands of novel readers, both here and abroad.
It is to the eternal credit of mankind that--at least up to
now--some inherent personal force within civilized man has
thwarted slavery, even if by a clearly defined violence that
separates (roughly, at least) the civilized from the aggressive
man--and even if by a hair's breadth. If this be melodrama, so be
it. It is also history. |
Novels by
Joseph Hayes
The
Desperate Hours, 1954
Bon Voyage, 1957
The Hours After Midnight, 1958
Don't Go Away Mad, 1962
The Third Day, 1964
Like Any Other Fugitive, 1972
The Long Dark Night, 1974
Missing and Presumed Dead, 1976
Island on Fire, 1979
Winner's Circle, 1980
No Escape, 1982
The Ways of Darkness, 1986
Plays
The
Thompsons, 1944
A Woman's Privilege, 1945
The Bridegroom Waits, 1946
Home for Christmas, 1946
Too Young, Too Old, 1948
Leaf and Bough, 1949
The Desperate Hours, 1956
Calculated Risk, 1962
The Deep End, 1969
Is Anyone Listening?, 1971
Come into My Parlor, 1988
Source:
Contemporary Authors Online, The Gale Group
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