Tahoe Loses One of Its Best

Oakley Hall
July 1, 1920–May 12, 2008

Lake Tahoe lost one of its most famous literary residents on May 12, when novelist Oakley Hall (interviewed in Tahoe Quarterly's Summer 2007 issue) passed away at age 87.

Born July 1, 1920, in San Diego, Hall graduated from UC Berkeley in 1943 and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, fighting in World War II. Upon his return, he married Barbara Edinger, and the couple had four children: daughters Brett, Sands and Tracy, and son Oakley III.

Hall wrote his first novel, Murder City, in just two weeks. His first bestseller was the 1953 San Diego–based Corpus of Joe Bailey, which was "very racy at the time," says daughter Brett Hall Jones. Hall achieved literary fame with his 1958 novel Warlock, a historical recreation of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, made into a movie featuring Henry Fonda. Robert Redford starred in Hollywood's version of Hall's 1963 The Downhill Racers. His last book was the 2007 Love and War in California.

But the Squaw Valley local was more than just a writer. "He was a very good father and community member," says Jones, adding that Hall would organize kids' ski races and scavenger hunts with literary clues.

In 1969, Hall and fellow novelist Blair Fuller founded the Squaw Valley Community of Writers workshops, which have since become an annual haven for poets and prose writers, both aspiring and accomplished. While Hall will be missed at the writers' conference and in the literary world, his presence survives in his teachings (he mentored Amy Tan and Michael Chabon), his words and his fans (among them, the rock band Oakley Hall).

–Alison Gray