Jon Hassler

Jon Hassler (March 30, 1933 – March 20, 2008) was an American writer and teacher known for his novels about small-town life in Minnesota. He held the positions of Regents professor emeritus and writer-in-residence at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota.
Biography
Hassler was born in Minneapolis on March 30, 1933. He spent his childhood and teen years in the Minnesota towns of Staples and Plainview, where he graduated from high school. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from St. John's University in 1955. While teaching English at three different Minnesota high schools, he received his Master of Arts degree in English from the University of North Dakota in 1960. He continued to teach high school until 1965, when he began his collegiate teaching career: first at Bemidji State University, then Brainerd Community College, and finally at Saint John's, where he became the writer-in-residence in 1980.
During his high-school teaching years, Hassler married and fathered three children. His first marriage lasted 25 years. He had two more marriages, the last to Gretchen Kresl Hassler.
In 1994, Hassler was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a disease similar to Parkinson's. It caused vision and speech problems, as well as difficulty walking, but he was able to continue writing. He was reported to have finished a novel just days before his death. Hassler died in 2008, at the age of 74, at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. The Jon Hassler Theater in Plainview is named for him. In 2021, his memoir Days Like Smoke was published posthumously.
Works
Much of Hassler's fiction involves characters struggling with transitions in their lives or searching for a central purpose. Many of his major characters are Catholic (or lapsed Catholics), and his novels frequently explore the role small-town life plays in shaping or limiting human potential.
Hassler's novels have several recurring characters, including Miles Pruitt (the protagonist in Staggerford, who is referred to in A Green Journey, The Love Hunter, and The New Woman); Agatha McGee (in Staggerford, A Green Journey, Dear James, The Staggerford Flood, and The New Woman); Larry Quinn (in The Love Hunter and Rookery Blues); and Frank Healy (in North of Hope and The New Woman).
Novels
Staggerford (1977)
Simon's Night (1979)
The Love Hunter (1981)
A Green Journey (1985)
Grand Opening (1987)
North of Hope (1990)
Dear James (1993)
Rookery Blues (1995)
The Dean's List (novel) (1998)
The Staggerford Flood (2002)
The Staggerford Murders (2004)
The New Woman (2005)
Short story collections
Keepsakes and Other Stories (2000)
Rufus at the Door and Other Stories (2000)
Nonfiction
Saint John's in Pictures - Introduction (1994)
My Staggerford Journal (1999)
Good People... from an Author's Life (2001)
Stories Teachers Tell (2004)
Days Like Smoke (2021)
Children's literature
Four Miles to Pinecone (1977)
Jemmy (novel) (1980)
Anthologized stories
Inheriting the Land, edited by Mark Vinz and Thom Tammaro ("The Undistinguished Poet", 1993)
Imagining Home, edited by Mark Vinz and Thom Tammaro ("Remembering Houses", 1995)
Adaptations
In 1990, Hassler's novel A Green Journey was adapted as a television movie, The Love She Sought, starring Angela Lansbury and Denholm Elliott.
References
External links
Jon Hassler's official website 2021
Jon Hassler's writing room
The Jon Hassler Theater 2013, which is a not for profit theater affiliated with the Rural America Arts Partnership, is located in Plainview, Minnesota. Closed in 2014.
Collection of Jon Hassler books
1933 births
2008 deaths
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American novelists
American male novelists
American children's writers
University of North Dakota alumni
Writers from Minneapolis
People from Plainview, Minnesota
College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University alumni
American male short story writers
20th-century American short story writers
21st-century American short story writers
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Novelists from Minnesota
Neurological disease deaths in Minnesota
Deaths from progressive supranuclear palsy