Tom Clancy (3341 words) Essay Example For Students

Tom Clancy (3341 words) Essay Tom ClancyWhen 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 Clancys 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 a shooting range (Greenberg 132). In one interview, Clancy was asked if he ever thought of changing houses. Clancy answered, Why should I change? Im not going to make more money anywhere else (Zaleski 4). In the past 5 years, Clancy had some difficulty in his personal life. In 1995, Wanda Thomas filed for divorce. She had found out that Clancy had been having an affair with a woman named Katherine Huang. The tank that stood on their lawn was then seen as a metaphor for their years of marriage (Schindette 1). I thought our marriage was as fine as most peoples, said Wanda, I will always love him in a certain way as the father of my children (Schindette 2). After the divorce, Clancy wanted to marry a lady named Alexandra Llewellyn, a 31 year old former televison reporter. He had been introduced to Llewellyn by one of her relatives, retired Gen. Colin Powell. The two got married on Saturday June 26, 1999, and are now living happily together in Clancys estate on the Chesapeake Bay. Wanda Thomas received custody of the children, while Clancy pays $6,500 a month is child support, a payment that he considers to be a very serious one. Clancy has a firm belief in the importance of family, Famil y is the beginning and end of everything that we are supposed to be working for (Greenberg 65). Clancy believes even stronger in the role of the father though, having been quoted saying, If you dont take care of your kids, what the hell good are you? Ive certainly had a couple of hard lessons in that. And one of the things I fear is to be lying there waiting to die and thinking, why didnt I spend more time with my children?(Greenberg 65). A friend of theirs said, The suddenness of successput an unbearable strain on the marriage. Fame and money are what destroyed it. (Schindette 2). Despite the rocky endings and solid beginnings Clancy has struggled through in his personal life, there is no doubt that his work has in no way suffered. Though Clancy did not publish any books till later in life, he became involved in writing at an early age. Clancy remembers that The writing bug bit me when I was in highschool. I was having a rather hard junior year, so I got myself a typewriter and began putting things down on paper (Cohen 2). In 1971, Clancy read the book Day of the Jackal, by Frederic Forsyth, which inspired Clancy to begin writing thrillers (Cohen 3). Clancy then quit his job, bought a typewriter and began to write on his kitchen table. Clancys feelings on beginning to write were, I was going to devote time to doing something Ive wanted to do really since high school, which was to write a book and have it published and see my name on the cover (Cerasini 59). Clancy wrote from November of 1982 to February of 1983, to finish the book later published as The Hunt for Red October (Cerasini 59). When Clancy had finished the book, he took immediate steps for it to be published, The next day I drove it up to the Naval I nstitute in Annapolis and just left it there and waited for their judgment, which came three weeks later. They said they really like it (Cerasini 59). However, what followed was something Clancy never imagined would happen. He describes his hopes for the outcome of his writing by saying, When I wrote Red October I though maybe wed sell maybe 5,000 or 10,000 hard covers and that would be the end of it. I never really thought about making money (Greenberg 123). Clancy was mistaken, since the sales for his new books had been tremendous and even Ronald Reagan had been quoted calling it The perfect yarn (Cohen 114). One of my gifts is, you give me 30, 40 minutes to talk to somebody, and I can look at the world through his eyes(Zaleski 5). Clancys search for direction in his writing career was brought to an end after talking to his agent for the first time, When my agent approached me for the first time one of the first questions I asked him was, ?Do you think Im good enough to do this fo r a living?, and he said, ?Yeah I think you probably are., It turns out he was right (Greenberg 59). Possibly even more amazing than Clancys talent at creating believable international thrillers is his ability to describe the military technology so accurately, without ever having been in contact with it. Clancy was asked after writing The Hunt for Red October, How could you have written Hunt for Red October without ever having gone on a submarine(Zaleski 4). Clancy tells of how he has many friends in the military and government from whom he borrows information in order to write his books. His hunt for information from friends is not always successful though, I know the people there and I have friendships, and nobody ever, ever, ever gives me classified information. The fact is, I can make up the classified stuff very easily. Sometimes I make up stuff that later turns out to be real. (Zaleski 5). Though to Tom Clancy at the time, The Hunt For Red October was only a small project, wha t was to follow would exceed his every expectation. Kosovo: Was An Intervention Needed? EssaySo far in this paper, I have discussed Tom Clancy the author, family man, and business man, now I want to discuss Clancy and his extracurricular involvement. In Tom Clancys basement, he has a gun range, my favorite gun is the Smith Wesson .45-caliber revolver(Cohen, 114). Clancys love for guns is strong and is seen in his work very continuously. A friend of his commented on a time when he and Clancy visited the White House, He really liked the CIA guys. Clancy kept asking to see their guns (Schindette 2). Though he is a huge fan of firearms, Clancy also like to watch wildlife, but never kills them (Cohen 114). Another hobby of Tom Clancys is being a owning major league sports franchises. Right now, he is the owner of 23% of the Baltimore Orioles. Clancy also made a $60,000,000 bid to buy the Minnesota Vikings, but at the last minute pulled out for unknown reasons (Schindette 3). Clancy also purchase a summer camp called Camp Kaufman. Camp K aufman is a summer Camp for poor Jewish kids, and when asked about the camp, Clancy simply answered, It is a place I want to protect(Cohen 115). This is Clancys way of giving all that he has earned back to those less fortunate. Tom Clancy, the American master of international techno-thrillers, uses experiences from his own life and his dreams to write successful books. Unfortunately, despite my attempt in contacting Tom Clancy, I was unable to receive any information back from him. By writing this paper, I learned a lot about Tom Clancy. I found that Tom Clancy is a man whose success lies only in the event that his real dreams had failed. I also found that it is possible for a man with such a strong belief in the family, to have a large amount of trouble with keeping his own together. Lastly I found that a man who writes a bestseller once a year, owns a multi-million dollar company, and is the owner of a summer camp and professional baseball team is still able to enjoy his life and is not bogged down by his many commitments in the world, while the rest of humanity seems to spend their lives stressed and looking for a way out. I found that Tom Clancy, while not a total recluse, gives very few interviews and tends to spend his time in the comfort of his own home. If I had to do the paper over again, I think I would definitely look into doing Shel Silverstein or Dr. Suess, because I enjoy their work and find them very fascinating. I am happy that I did my paper on Tom Clancy, because I learned a valuable lesson about never letting go of your dreams when there are obstacles in the way. Biographies