This Goodly Land

Thomas McAfee (May 13, 1928–August 10, 1982)

Other Names Used

• James Thomas McAfee: full name

Alabama Connections

• Haleyville, Winston County: birthplace, childhood residence

Selected Works

• McAfee, Thomas. Poems and Stories. Columbia: University of Missouri, 1960.
• McAfee, Thomas. I'll Be Home Late Tonight: Poems. Columbia: University of Missouri, 1967.
• McAfee, Thomas. Rover Youngblood: An American Fable. New York: R. W. Baron, 1969.
• McAfee, Thomas. The Body & the Body's Guest: New and Selected Poems. Kansas City, Mo.: BkMk, 1975.
• McAfee, Thomas. The Tempo Changes, the Lights Go Up, the Partners Change. Columbia, Mo.: Singing Wind Publications, 1978.
• McAfee, Thomas. Whatever Isn't Glory: Stories. St. Louis, Mo.: Singing Wind Press, K. M. Gentile Pub., 1979.

Biographical Information

Thomas McAfee was born and raised in Haleyville, Ala. His mother died when McAfee was five. His stepmother had a large library and allowed him to read whatever he liked without any restrictions. McAfee began writing as a boy. He spent his last two years of high school at Columbia Military Academy in Columbia, Tenn. McAfee attended the University of Missouri at Columbia where he earned an AB in English in 1949 and an MA in 1950. He was also a student at the Kenyon School of English, a summer literature program at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. McAfee was drafted in 1950 and served in the US Army for two years. He continued his extensive reading and his writing during this time.

After his discharge from the Army, McAfee returned to Columbia where he taught in the English department of the University of Missouri for twenty-nine years. His poems and short stories began appearing in literary magazines in the 1950s. In 1959, his short story “The Prisoner” was published in Esquire magazine. The following year, McAfee published his first book, Poems and Stories. Over the next twenty-two years, he published a novel, another collection of short stories, and several poetry collections, some in limited-edition chapbooks. McAfee received a writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1976. He died in Columbia of lung cancer in 1982.

Interests and Themes

The poems of Thomas McAfee are stark and unflinchingly realistic. His dark and violent short stories are set in rural or small-town Alabama. His novel, Rover Youngblood, is about the travels of an unsophisticated North Alabama boy.

For More Information

Please check your local library for these materials. If items are not available locally, your librarian can help you borrow them through the InterLibrary Loan program. Your librarian can also help you find other information about this author.

There may be more information available through the databases in the Alabama Virtual Library. If you are an Alabama citizen, AVL can be used at your public library or school library media center. You can also get a username and password from your librarian to use AVL at home.

Reference Articles

• Slavitt, David R. "Thomas McAfee". Harvard Review 24. (2003): 62-68.

Reference Web Sites

• "McAfee, James Thomas (1928-1982), Papers, 1948-1985. [Finding Aid]". Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Columbia. 2002. University of Missouri. http://www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3728.html.

Location of Papers

• University of Missouri at Columbia

Photo courtesy of the James T. McAfee, Papers, 1948-1985, Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Columbia, MO and the University of Missouri/State Historical Society of Missouri.

Last updated on May 30, 2008.