In the long and star-studded literary history of Chicago, few if any writers worked as hard at their craft than Harry Mark Petrakis.
He was the author of dozens of books, one of which, “A Dream of Kings,” became a bestseller and a 1969 film starring Anthony Quinn. His work firmly rooted in his own Greek American community and experiences, he also wrote hundreds of short stories, some nonfiction books and three fine memoirs. He was always writing, and he never stopped writing, in recent years contributing frank and nostalgic recollections to the Sun-Times opinion pages.
The last of those appeared in October and when he died last week at his home in Dune Acres, near Chesterton, Ind., he was 97 years old. His son was with him when the end came. “He had had heart problems in his later years, but the death came gently,” said John Petrakis, a longtime Chicago-based film critic and screenwriting teacher at the School of the Art Institute. “Even to the end he was working on a novella and wanted to talk about it, share his ideas.”
Harry Mark Petrakis was born on June 5, 1923, in St. Louis, a first-generation Greek American. He was soon living in Chicago with five siblings and their mother Stella and father, Mark, who was Greek Orthodox priest. They lived on the South Side.
The family was, to hear Harry tell it, operating on a financial shoestring, and when he was 11, he contracted tuberculosis. He was home-bound and bedridden for the next two years, during which he read hundreds of books but lost whatever taste he may have had for classrooms.
Enrolled in Englewood High School, he dropped out in his sophomore year and devoted much of his time to gambling, primarily the ponies but almost any wager would do.
“He always referred to this time as his ‘misspent youth’,” said John.
He married Diana Perparos, who he had known since grammar school, in 1945, against the counsel of her mother. They had three boys as Harry worked like a devil to make ends meet. Some of his “careers” were selling real estate, pressing clothes for a cleaner, working a drugstore fountain … the list is long. With the help of family money, but not enough of it to change the name on the sign, he ran a lunchroom at 13th Street and Indiana Avenue. It was called Art’s Lunch.
At night, he wrote, typing out stories. After a decade of rejection slips, he finally sold one, “Pericles on 31st Street” to the Atlantic magazine. He celebrated by dancing around the apartment with his family, waving the check in the $400 check in the air.
That was 1956 and he was 33 years old. Against the advice of writer friends, he was so empowered that he decided to start the freelance life. He did and often later told of making but a couple of thousand dollars during his first few years of full time writing.
But the words flowed in a steady stream. His “Dream of Kings” gave him a small cushion but he was ever taking on non-writing work to supplement in income. He taught, he lectured, he performed at writers’ conferences. His writing gathered praise — Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “I’ve often thought what a wonderful basketball team could be formed from Petrakis’ characters. Every one of them is at least fourteen feet tall” — but that did not translate into high sales figures.
“It was always a struggle,” Harry once said.
But he always carried himself proudly. He and my father were friends and I would often sit at long dinners listening them talk about the joys and troubles of a writer’s life, which for Harry also included a severe midlife depression.
In 1987, on the occasion of the publication of his “Collected Stories,” there was a book signing party at a Greektown restaurant. Afterward, Petrakis told me, in the wonderfully sonorous voice of his, “With age I find that I am a much better craftsman but that I have also lost some energy. I can no longer write in emotional, lyrical outbursts.”
But he kept at it, kept getting praise and awards. In Oct. 2014, he was presented a lifetime achievement award by the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in advance of the publication of his third memoir, “Song of My Life.”
It was a joyful event, a celebratory homage with many of Harry’s friends and admirers.
One of them was former Tribune book editor John Blades who told me via email, “I’d always thought of Harry as the third man in a Chicago gang of three, behind James T. Farrell and Nelson Algren, all of whom covered similar territory, burrowing deeply and empathetically into what’s become known as the city’s underclass — gamblers and working stiffs, delinquents and boozers, low-rollers and dreamers, derelict husbands and errant drifters. As a stylist, Petrakis was superior to Farrell’s pedestrian, almost stenographic prose in his ‘Studs Lonigan’ trilogy. But Petrakis’ lusty men and women, defined by bursts of tragicomic energy and mythic dimensions in ‘A Dream of Kings’ and other novels, was no match for Algren’s flights of urban poetry and his anguished feel for the downtrodden.”
Blades also recalled, fondly, the frequent Sunday gatherings the Petrakises would hold at their home, with friends from the literary community. Blades wrote, “Unlike so many other writers, Harry was an accomplished public performer as well as a solitary scrivener. My wife, Barbara, and I witnessed a number of these performances at the Petrakis house high on a Dunes promontory. The dinners ended with Harry giving an athletic reading from one of his works, often a chapter from ‘The Hour of the Bell,’ the atypical historical novel that he called his ‘War and Peace.’
“Harry was unusual among writers in that he was not modest or insecure about the enduring value of his collected prose. And he was one of the rare few whose absence of modesty could not only be forgiven but appreciated, due largely to his patent sincerity and belief in his talent. He presided over these gatherings as Greek patriarch, after a feast of lamb and artichokes, from the expert hand of his wife.”
Diana died on Christmas Day in 2018 after 73 years of marriage. Son John had often collaborated with his father, writing a couple of yet-unproduced screenplays. “It was great fun to work with him. He had such a creative way with language,” said John. “Not only did I love my father. I admired him.”
In addition to John, Petrakis is survived by son Mark, a former actor, writer and director now a website developer in the San Francisco area; son Dean, who calls Los Angeles home and is in the computer business; four grandchildren and one great grandchild.
Services were private and memorial service is being planned. Until then, as is common these days, Harry Mark Petrakis and his writing can still be found at www.harrymarkpetrakis.com.
rkogan@chicagotribune.com
