J. Anthony Lukas was a prize-winning
journalist and
author. After graduating from
Harvard, he worked for the
Baltimore Sun and the
New York Times. During his stint at the
Times, he won his first
Pulitzer Prize for a 1967 article titled “The Two Worlds of Linda Fitzpatrick,” the story of a young woman who grew up in wealthy
Greenwich, Connecticut and died in a
hippie commune. In 1972, he quit his job to write books full-time. Among his books are:
Don’t Shoot – We Are Your Children;
The Barnyard Epithet and Other Conspiracies;
Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years;
Common Ground, which explores the busing crisis in Boston and won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize;
Big Trouble, which was published
posthumously, covers the conflicts between radical
unionists and
mining interests in early-20th century
Idaho.
In addition to the Pulitzer, Lukas also won the National Book
Critics Circle Award, the
Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and the American Book Award. He also coined the
euphemism “
barnyard epithet”. In June of 1997, he committed
suicide.