Peter Ferry
Born: June 17, 1947
Died: September 17, 2024 Connection to Illinois: Ferry graduated from Von Steuben High School in Chicago. He lived the majority of his adult life in Evanston. He taught at Lake Forest High School and had retired from teaching English. Biography: Peter Ferry was a Chicago area teacher, editor and writer. He edited textbooks for Rand McNally and was a frequent contributor to the travel pages of the Chicago Tribune and the website WorldHum. His short stories have appeared in McSweeney's, Fiction, StoryQuarterly, OR and Chicago Quarterly Review. Ferry was the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Award for Short Fiction. Old Heart, which won the Chicago Writers Association Novel of the Year award in 2015. His award-winning novel, Old Heart was adapted and turned into a stage play by the theatrical and movie producer Roger Rapoport, and it opened at the Redmond Theater in Detroit in May of 2022. Rapoport has also purchased the movie rights to Old Heart, and his adaptation is currently in production.
Awards:
- Old Heart Chicago Writers Association Novel of the Year, 2015
Selected Titles
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Old Heart: A Novel ISBN: 1609531175 OCLC: 891619117 Unbridled Books 2015 Tom Johnson has turned 85 and has suffered a few events,” though he knows his mind is sharp. His oldest son, who had Down Syndrome has died, and his remaining two children want to move him out of the homestead lake house and into a retirement home in town. What Tom wants to do is to find the only woman he ever loved, a woman he met in the Netherlands where he was stationed during World War II. And so he slips away, deftly covers his tracks, and begins his search for her in Eindhoven. While his children try to track him down and then have him extradited back home, Tom delves into love and loss and the value of memory. Soon he catches sight of a woman he believes to be Sarah, the love he lost almost a lifetime ago. He will have to fight for her affections and forgiveness, even as he fights for the legal right to stay in the Netherlands in the name of love and family and all the remaining rights of an old man. |
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Travel Writing ISBN: 0701181923 OCLC: 228196513 Chatto & Windus London : 2008 Pete Ferry is driving home from work one evening when he sees a car swerving dangerously on the road. He wants to keep out of its way, so he allows it to overtake - but as it does so he sees that the driver is a beautiful woman, she's half-naked or at least her clothes are hanging off her, and it's clear that she's drunk or something isn't right. He follows at a safe distance for a while, wondering what he should do - call the police? Flag down some help? Then he finds himself at a traffic light, next to her car, and he realises that now is the moment to do something. He could get out and tell her to pull over, or see if she needs help. But he hesitates, unsure, the lights change and her car lurches forward straight into a tree, killing her instantly... This is the story that Pete tells his class of high-school students in the wealthy suburb of Chicago where he teaches and writes. But did this actually happen, or is it just an elaborate tale he concocts to illustrate the power of story-telling to his restless teenage charges? Was it really an accident? Could Pete have prevented it? Who was the beautiful woman, and why can't he stop thinking about her? What might his obsession mean to his relationship with his girlfriend, Lydia? With humour, tenderness, and suspense, Travel Writing takes the reader on fascinating journeys, both geographical and psychological, playing with our notions of fact and fiction and questioning whether the lines between them are more blurred than we first expect. |