Tom Clancy

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Tom Clancy

When choosing an author for my paper, I chose international suspense because I am very interested in foreign relations and the technology of modern day war. I have read stories by Edgar Allen Poe, with suspense and vivid imagery, which reminded me of Clancy's work. I decided to choose Tom Clancy because of his talent to weave such realistic tales of international suspense. Clancy creates the scenes in his books with such detail, it makes the reader feel like he/she is there. My first choice for this paper was Dr. Suess, but because he has passed away, I had to keep looking. I knew very little information about my author before writing this paper. I had read two of his books, but had no real knowledge of his personal life or past history. Tom Clancy, a successful American author of international suspense, has captured his love of military and technology and profitably employed it in the books he writes.

The life of Thomas L. Clancy Jr. started like any other, but changed with the success of his work. He was born the year 1947, in the City of Baltimore, Maryland. His father was a postal carrier and also a store credit employer (Speace 98). Clancy spent his life educated in only Catholic schools. Because of this Clancy says, "I was never swept up in the drugs or music"(Cohen 2). He attended Loyola College in Baltimore Maryland, and earned a degree in English (Speace 98). At that time, Clancy then tried to enlist in the army. He was excused though, because of a case of myopia. "I thought I would have made a good tank commander"(Speace 99) , said Clancy, whose childhood dreams had been broken when he was kept from entering into the military. He then took on a career as an insurance agent in Baltimore Maryland, and kept that job until around 1973 (Speace 98). He then became a business owner from 1973 to the year 1980. In 1969, Clancy married a woman named Wanda Thomas, who was an eye surgeon and an insurance agency manager (Speace 98). They had four children, Michelle, Christine, Tom, and Kathleen, and a dog named Freddie (Cohen 115). They lived on 400 wooded acres in Maryland, along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. Standing on the front lawn is a tank, given to him as a gift by his wife at the time (Schindehette 114). On the property there are also two tennis courts, two basketball courts, a full length football field and...

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... go of your dreams when there are obstacles in the way.

Works Cited

Speace, Geri. NewsMakers. 1998 vol. New York, 1998.

Cohen, Rich. "Master of War" Rolling Stone December 1994:114

Greenberg, Martin H. The Tom Clancy Companion. New York: Berkley Books, 1992.

http://www.RedStorm Entertainment.com RedStorm Entertainment, 1999.

Cerasini, Marc A. Tom Clancy's Fiction: The Birth of a Techno Thriller. New York:

Berkley Books, 1991.

Zaleski, Jeff. "The Hunt for Tom Clancy". Publishers Weekly 15 July 1998

Schindehette, Susan. "Storm Rising". People Magazine 15 June 1998: 141

Clancy, Tom. Op Center. New York: Berkley Publishing Corp., 1995

Clancy, Tom. Sum of All Fears. New York: Berkley Publishing Corp., 1992

Clancy, Tom. Red Storm Rising. New York: Putnam Books, 1986

Hitbrand, David. "Tom Clancy's Op Center". People Magazine 27 February 1995:12

"There's No Pot of Gold at the End of Clancy's ‘Rainbow Six'". The Washington Post

7 September 1998, Final ed

Zinsser, John. "Clear and Present Sounds". Publishers Weekly 3 July 1998: pages N/A

Maryles, Daisy. "Clancy's Latest Victory". Publishers Weekly 17 August 1998: pages N/A

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