H. Res. 1040 

In the House of Representatives, U. S., 

March 20, 2010. 

Whereas Donald Douglas Harington was born on December 

22, 1935, in Little Rock, Arkansas; 

Whereas at age 6, he attempted to write his first novel, ‘‘The 

Adventures of Duke Doolittle’’; 

Whereas at age 12, Harington contracted meningococcal 

meningitis and as a result lost most of his hearing; 

Whereas Harington graduated from the University of Arkansas with a bachelor’s degree in art in 1956, a master’s 

degree in printmaking in 1959, and from Boston University with a master’s degree in art history in 1959; 

Whereas Harington taught art history at Bennett College in 

Millbrook, New York, from 1960 to 1962, and at 

Windham College in Putney, Vermont, from 1964 to 

1978; 

Whereas Harington had short-term teaching appointments at 

the University of Missouri Rolla, the University of Pittsburg, and South Dakota State, and taught art history at 

the University of Arkansas from 1986 until he retired in 

2008; 

Whereas Harington’s first novel, ‘‘The Cherry Pit’’, was published in 1965 and over the course of his literary career 

he also published ‘‘Lightning Bug’’ (1970), ‘‘Some Other 
2 

•HRES 1040 EH 

Place. The Right Place’’ (1972), ‘‘The Architecture of 

the Arkansas Ozarks’’ (1975), ‘‘Let Us Build Us a City: 

Eleven Lost Towns’’ (1986), ‘‘The Cockroaches of Stay 

More’’ (1989), ‘‘The Choiring of the Trees’’ (1991), 

‘‘Ekaterina’’ (1993), ‘‘Butterfly Weed’’ (1996), ‘‘When 

Angels Rest’’ (1998), ‘‘Thirteen Albatrosses (or, Falling 

off the Mountain)’’ (2002), ‘‘With’’ (2003), ‘‘The Pitcher 

Shower’’ (2005), ‘‘Farther Along’’ (2008), and ‘‘Enduring’’ (2009); 

Whereas in 1999, Harington was inducted into the Arkansas 

Writers’ Hall of Fame; 

Whereas in 2003, Harington won the Robert Penn Award for 

Fiction, and in 2006 received the first lifetime achievement award for Southern literature from Oxford American magazine; 

Whereas writer Kevin Brockmeier expressed that ‘‘the signal 

feature of Donald Harington’s novels is their tremendous 

liveliness. His books are not blind to suffering, featuring 

as they do murder, poverty, kidnapping, loss, and betrayal. Yet the mood of his stories is overwhelmingly one 

of celebration. He extends his sympathies so widely that 

even the trees and the hills, the insects and the animals, 

the criminals and the ghosts seem to sing with the joy 

of existence. He brings a tenderness and a brio to the 

page that prevents his characters from sinking beneath 

the weight of their troubles, and one finishes his books 

above all else with an impression of a robust, loving 

comic energy. You feel as if you have been immersed in 

life, both your own life and the particular lives of his 

characters, and that life, for all its misfortunes, is a pretty good place to be’’; 
3 

•HRES 1040 EH 

Whereas Entertainment Weekly called Harington ‘‘America’s 

greatest unknown writer’’; 

Whereas Harington was described in the Washington Post as 

‘‘one of the most powerful, subtle, and inventive novelists 

in America’’; 

Whereas Harington once said that his philosophy of writing 

was that literature, that all art, is an escape from the 

world that makes the world itself, when you return to it, 

more magical, bearable, or understandable; and 

Whereas, on November 7, 2009, at age 73, Harington died 

in Springdale, Arkansas, from complications of pneumonia: Now, therefore, be it 

Resolved, That the House of Representatives honors the 

life and accomplishments of Donald Harington for his contributions to literature in the United States. 

Attest: 

Clerk.