Ron Terpening
Encyclopedia
Ron Terpening is an American
writer, professor
of Italian, and editor
. Though he started his writing career as an author of young-adult fiction, where the father/son conflict is a major theme, he is best known for his later novels of suspense, most of which are set, at least in part, in Italy, reflecting his academic background as a scholar of Italian culture. His thriller League of Shadows, for example, deals with the Fascist Era in Italy and its aftermath in the contemporary world. A later international thriller, Nine Days in October, came out of the author’s course research on the forces of order and disorder in contemporary Italy and follows a band of criminals and ex-terrorists as they attempt to carry out an assassination plot. All of his novels, including Storm Track and Tropic of Fear, the latter set in Paraguay
, are noted for their strong sense of place. In most of his novels, his protagonist is usually a common man placed in a situation where powerful forces are arrayed against him.
While his novels take place in the modern era, Terpening’s academic research has focused on Italian authors of the Renaissance, most notably the Venetian Humanist Lodovico Dolce
, although he has also published a study of the infernal boatman Charon
and numerous articles on other writers of the 15th and 16th centuries. His editing work has ranged from text books, mostly anthologies of Italian literature, to broad studies of Italian culture.
in 1946, second son of Harold Russell and Darlene Elizabeth Terpening. His father was a Protestant minister and an evangelist who started several churches in the state of Washington.
After living in Birch Bay
, Pateros
, and Moses Lake
, Washington, Terpening attended grade school in Ferndale
, Warden
, Wenatchee
, and Seattle (in Washington state) and Portland
and Gresham
(in Oregon
). He graduated from Gresham Union High School in 1964.
Terpening completed his undergraduate work at the University of Oregon
in Eugene
(B.A. Romance Languages, Honors College, 1969), where he was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa national honor society
. He spent his Sophomore year in Pavia
, Italy
, and lived in Mexico City
for one year. His semi-autobiographical novel In Light’s Delay narrates several events of those years (1966–1968). In his youth, Terpening held a variety of jobs while attending school and first beginning to write fiction: he serviced vehicles in a dairy, worked in a berry growers cannery, on a cement gang in construction, as a striper of panels in a Georgia-Pacific
veneer plant, a crew dispatcher for Southern Pacific Railroad
, a housekeeping aide in Herrick Hospital (Berkeley, California
), a mail handler for the U.S. Postal System in Oakland, and a teacher.
He completed his Master’s (1973) and Ph.D. in Italian (1978) at the University of California, Berkeley
. His revised dissertation was later published as Charon and the Crossing: Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Transformations of a Myth (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1985). The illustrated book was the first comprehensive study of the underworld boatman Charon
as found in the literary tradition from pre-Homeric texts through the early Baroque period in Italy. Thomas G. Bergin (Yale University
) said that the book, “in grace of an engaging style and a never flagging interest in [the] subject, makes for lively reading.”
Terpening taught Italian for four years at Loyola University of Chicago (1978–1982). He worked as an editorial assistant for John Tedeschi on two volumes of the Bibliographie Internationale de l’Humanisme et de la Renaissance and was a research fellow of the Mabelle McLeod Lewis Memorial Fund, The Renaissance Society of America
, the American Council of Learned Societies
, and the National Endowment for the Humanities
in conjunction with the Newberry Library
.
He also received a fellowship from the American Association of Teachers of Italian to study at the Università Italiana per Stranieri di Perugia (Italy), in 1981.
From 1982-2008, Terpening was a professor in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Arizona
, where he introduced a new option in Italian Studies for the bachelor’s degree, a program that covered Italian culture from prehistoric times to the present. He directed the Arizona Study Abroad Program in Florence, Italy, in 1987, and was co-acting head of the department in 1996. Beginning in 1986, he also served on the editorial board of New Connections: Studies in Interdisciplinarity.
Author of numerous scholarly articles and reviews dealing with Italian and Spanish literature, he published his second academic book, Lodovico Dolce
: Renaissance Man of Letters, in 1997. He is also the author and editor of several academic texts, most notably a pseudonymous study Beautiful Italy, Beloved Shores. An Illustrated Cultural History of Italy, Vol. 1: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of the Roman Empire and two anthologies of Italian literature
with text in Italian and notes in scholarly articles deal with authors such as Giovanni Boccaccio
, Angelo Poliziano, Pietro Bembo
, Giordano Bruno
, Miguel de Cervantes
, and Giambattista Marino.
Terpening retired in 2008 and is now a professor emeritus of Italian at the University of Arizona.
in the late 60s, where he also worked as a features reporter for the Oregon Daily Emerald
. He completed his second novel (The Echoes of Our Two Hearts, unpublished) as a graduate student at Berkeley. A third novel, The Turning, was released in 2001 and serves as the first volume in this trilogy of young-adult novels.
In Light’s Delay is the story of a young man’s quest for self-discovery and love in the mid-1960s. The novel depicts the experiences of Doug Herman and his friends over the course of ten nights, at different times and places, as it follows Doug from the family farm in Oregon to a series of adventures in Italy, Mexico, and back in California.
The Turning, a coming-of-age tale, tells the story of Artie Crenshaw, a teenager with an abusive father. At his job one night, Artie decides to postpone going home, and the events that follow as a result of this decision cause him more trouble but ultimately help spur his progression towards manhood. Karen Hoth, writing in the School Library Journal
, praised the “well-written story,” proclaiming the characters “well developed” and the book itself “touching.” The book was selected for inclusion on The New York Public Library’s 2002 Books For The Teen Age List, the “best of the previous year’s publishing for teenagers,” by the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association for their Top Forty Young-Adult Novels for 2001, and by Appleton North High School (Appleton, Wisconsin
) for their Top 25 Recommended Reading (2002).
, Robert Ludlum
, Jack Higgins
, and David Morrell
), Terpening began work on a thriller while teaching at Loyola University of Chicago, where he used the Chicago Public Library
for technical research (Cloud Cover, unpublished).
, where his wife is killed in a terrorist attack. William C. McCully (Park Ridge Public Library, Illinois), writing in Library Journal
, praised the thriller’s “non-stop action” and “breathtaking pace,” as well as its settings in Italy
, Sicily
, Malta
, and Tunisia
. And Suzy Smith, author of The Afterlife Codes, The Book of James, and Ghost Writers in the Sky, in The Write Word, called Terpening “the next Ken Follett
.”
Terpening’s second thriller, League of Shadows (2005), was a contemporary novel of intrigue with an extensive back story that takes place in Italy during the Fascist Era
. The historical scenes depict the efforts of three spies in 1943 to infiltrate Italian leader Benito Mussolini
’s secret police, the OVRA
. Decades after that intrigue went horribly wrong, an unknown enemy begins to hunt down the former secret agents, and their one hope for survival is an ex-cop obsessed with his mission. The Midwest Book Review
called the novel “an addictive read, weaving together human drive, determination, and betrayal into a gripping whole”, while Lucille Cormier, in The Historical Novels Review, said that “You can race through this suspense thriller riding the whirlwind of drug busts, jungle guerrilla attacks, gun fights, assassinations, and love affairs right into the breathtaking climax. Or, if you are disciplined enough, you can turn each page slowly and savor the extraordinary visual and historical detail Ron Terpening has painted into his complex story. Either way, you are in for a treat. This is a book to add to every collection of historical fiction
.” Joel Tscherne (Cleveland Public Library) noted in Library Journal
that this is a novel that “fans of Jack Higgins
’s thrillers will enjoy.”
(1973) and books such as Robert Stone’s A Flag for Sunrise (1981), Terpening turned for his next thriller, Tropic of Fear (2006), to South America
. Barbara Conaty, writing in Library Journal
, noted that “this thriller takes readers deep into the politics of Paraguay
.” She thought that Terpening “imbue[d] his main characters with psychological depth, infuse[d] the book with local color galore, and fashion[ed] a deft plot.” As for the plot, two Americans, a hydrogeologist from Arizona
and a professor of German from Yale University
, both visiting Asunción
but originally unknown to one another, are inadvertently drawn into the middle of a conspiracy to overthrow the Paraguayan government. The male protagonist’s occupation came in for discussion in the Arizona Water Resource magazine. The editor wrote:
In an interview published in Liens, Legami, Links Terpening noted:
In a Booklist
review, David Pitt commented on “small flaws in the plot,” but observed that the “brisk clip” and pace of the action overcame that flaw. Christine Wald-Hopkins, a reviewer for the Tucson Weekly
, noted this novel’s affinities with the earlier League of Shadows, pointing out that the “malignant confluence of internal and external forces in contemporary Paraguay
. . . has its own fascist resonance.” And the Midwest Book Review
concluded: “Vivid, descriptive, imaginative, and chilling in its presentation of the lengths human beings will go to dominate one another, Tropic of Fear is an exciting thrill ride from first page to last.”
In 2007, Terpening published a contemporary international suspense thriller, Nine Days in October, “his most successful fictional foray into the murk of international crime.” Jonathan Pearce (California State University, Stanislaus-Stockton), writing in Library Journal
, says that Terpening “gets his latest book off to a slam-bang start in Rome
with a botched heist by terrorists. During the robbery, a visiting American professor is wounded and his daughter kidnapped, possibly for ransom.” Set in 1988, as competing government security organizations are preparing to welcome both the Soviet premier and the U.S. president to Italy, the novel’s complex plot, Pearce says, “revolves around a... professor's attempts to find his child while he is unknowingly trapped in an assassination scheme involving rogue CIA
agents, venal U.S. executives, Soviet oligarchs, and corrupt Italian security officials.” He concludes that “The reader roots for a weary Italian security officer to do his job better than the villains do theirs. The author's research is evidently extensive, the writing competent, the suspense gripping, and the characterization of beastly adversaries and noble protagonists effective. The sense of place is bolstered with such an abundance of native vocabulary and street and building names that Italophiles will feel right at home.”
In an interview conducted by Contemporary Authors
, Terpening said: “My desire to create imaginary worlds through fiction springs, as I suspect it does for most writers, from a love of reading. From early grade school years, when I was given my first books (most still in my library today) and when I lived one house away from the public library in Gresham, Oregon
(where I spent most of my free time), to the present, when I teach Italian literature
for a living, my addiction has been not to candy, rock 'n' roll, TV, drugs, sex, or gambling, but to the book—both as an artifact and as a source of delight, a distraction from the constraints of life. A good book carries you away and never lets you down.”
Terpening has also reviewed over 125 novels (mostly suspense) for Library Journal
.
For scholarly reviews, see the author’s curriculum vitae.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer, professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of Italian, and editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
. Though he started his writing career as an author of young-adult fiction, where the father/son conflict is a major theme, he is best known for his later novels of suspense, most of which are set, at least in part, in Italy, reflecting his academic background as a scholar of Italian culture. His thriller League of Shadows, for example, deals with the Fascist Era in Italy and its aftermath in the contemporary world. A later international thriller, Nine Days in October, came out of the author’s course research on the forces of order and disorder in contemporary Italy and follows a band of criminals and ex-terrorists as they attempt to carry out an assassination plot. All of his novels, including Storm Track and Tropic of Fear, the latter set in Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
, are noted for their strong sense of place. In most of his novels, his protagonist is usually a common man placed in a situation where powerful forces are arrayed against him.
While his novels take place in the modern era, Terpening’s academic research has focused on Italian authors of the Renaissance, most notably the Venetian Humanist Lodovico Dolce
Lodovico Dolce
Lodovico Dolce was an Italian theorist of painting. He was a broadly-based Venetian humanist and prolific author, translator and editor; he is now remembered for his Dialogue on Painting.-Biography:...
, although he has also published a study of the infernal boatman Charon
Charon (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on...
and numerous articles on other writers of the 15th and 16th centuries. His editing work has ranged from text books, mostly anthologies of Italian literature, to broad studies of Italian culture.
Early life
Terpening was born in Bellingham, WashingtonBellingham, Washington
Bellingham is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It is the twelfth-largest city in the state. Situated on Bellingham Bay, Bellingham is protected by Lummi Island, Portage Island, and the Lummi Peninsula, and opens onto the Strait of Georgia...
in 1946, second son of Harold Russell and Darlene Elizabeth Terpening. His father was a Protestant minister and an evangelist who started several churches in the state of Washington.
Birch Bay, Washington
-External links:*...
, Pateros
Pateros, Washington
Pateros is a city in Okanogan County, Washington, United States. The population was 643 at the 2000 census and increased 3.7% to 667 in the 2010 census.-History:Pateros was originally established as Ive's Landing in around 1886 by Lee Ives...
, and Moses Lake
Moses Lake, Washington
Moses Lake is a city in Grant County, Washington, United States. The population was 20,366 as of the 2010 census. Moses Lake is the largest city in Grant County.-Background:...
, Washington, Terpening attended grade school in Ferndale
Ferndale, Washington
-Demographics:As of the census of 2009, there were 11,681 people, 3,901 households, and 2,303 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,409.1 people per square mile . There were 3,292 housing units at an average density of 529.7 per square mile...
, Warden
Warden, Washington
Warden is a city in Grant County, Washington, United States. The population was 2,544 at the 2000 census.-History:The Central Basin plateau was settled in the late 1800s by immigrants of Russian-German ancestry who homesteaded in the area and farmed dryland wheat...
, Wenatchee
Wenatchee, Washington
Wenatchee is located in North Central Washington and is the largest city and county seat of Chelan County, Washington, United States. The population within the city limits in 2010 was 31,925...
, and Seattle (in Washington state) and Portland
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
and Gresham
Gresham, Oregon
- Demographics :As of the census of 2000, there were 90,205 people, 33,327 households, and 22,695 families residing in the city. The population density was 4,071.6 people per square mile . There were 35,309 housing units at an average density of 1,593.8 per square mile...
(in Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
). He graduated from Gresham Union High School in 1964.
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
in Eugene
Eugene, Oregon
Eugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...
(B.A. Romance Languages, Honors College, 1969), where he was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa national honor society
Honor society
In the United States, an honor society is a rank organization that recognizes excellence among peers. Numerous societies recognize various fields and circumstances. The Order of the Arrow, for example, is the national honor society of the Boy Scouts of America...
. He spent his Sophomore year in Pavia
Pavia
Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and lived in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
for one year. His semi-autobiographical novel In Light’s Delay narrates several events of those years (1966–1968). In his youth, Terpening held a variety of jobs while attending school and first beginning to write fiction: he serviced vehicles in a dairy, worked in a berry growers cannery, on a cement gang in construction, as a striper of panels in a Georgia-Pacific
Georgia-Pacific
Georgia-Pacific LLC is an American pulp and paper company based in Atlanta, Georgia, and is one of the world's leading manufacturers and distributors of tissue, pulp, paper, packaging, building products and related chemicals. As of Fall 2010, the company employed more than 40,000 people at more...
veneer plant, a crew dispatcher for Southern Pacific Railroad
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....
, a housekeeping aide in Herrick Hospital (Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
), a mail handler for the U.S. Postal System in Oakland, and a teacher.
He completed his Master’s (1973) and Ph.D. in Italian (1978) at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. His revised dissertation was later published as Charon and the Crossing: Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Transformations of a Myth (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1985). The illustrated book was the first comprehensive study of the underworld boatman Charon
Charon (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on...
as found in the literary tradition from pre-Homeric texts through the early Baroque period in Italy. Thomas G. Bergin (Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
) said that the book, “in grace of an engaging style and a never flagging interest in [the] subject, makes for lively reading.”
Career
The Renaissance Society of America
The Renaissance Society of America is an academic association founded in 1954 supportingthe study of the Renaissance period, 1300–1650, in Western history....
, the American Council of Learned Societies
American Council of Learned Societies
The American Council of Learned Societies , founded in 1919, is a private nonprofit federation of seventy scholarly organizations.ACLS is best known as a funder of humanities research through fellowships and grants awards. ACLS Fellowships are designed to permit scholars holding the Ph.D...
, and the National Endowment for the Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
in conjunction with the Newberry Library
Newberry Library
The Newberry Library is a privately endowed, independent research library for the humanities and social sciences in Chicago, Illinois. Although it is private, non-circulating library, the Newberry Library is free and open to the public...
.
He also received a fellowship from the American Association of Teachers of Italian to study at the Università Italiana per Stranieri di Perugia (Italy), in 1981.
From 1982-2008, Terpening was a professor in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
, where he introduced a new option in Italian Studies for the bachelor’s degree, a program that covered Italian culture from prehistoric times to the present. He directed the Arizona Study Abroad Program in Florence, Italy, in 1987, and was co-acting head of the department in 1996. Beginning in 1986, he also served on the editorial board of New Connections: Studies in Interdisciplinarity.
Author of numerous scholarly articles and reviews dealing with Italian and Spanish literature, he published his second academic book, Lodovico Dolce
Lodovico Dolce
Lodovico Dolce was an Italian theorist of painting. He was a broadly-based Venetian humanist and prolific author, translator and editor; he is now remembered for his Dialogue on Painting.-Biography:...
: Renaissance Man of Letters, in 1997. He is also the author and editor of several academic texts, most notably a pseudonymous study Beautiful Italy, Beloved Shores. An Illustrated Cultural History of Italy, Vol. 1: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of the Roman Empire and two anthologies of Italian literature
Italian literature
Italian literature is literature written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in Italy in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian....
with text in Italian and notes in scholarly articles deal with authors such as Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
, Angelo Poliziano, Pietro Bembo
Pietro Bembo
Pietro Bembo was an Italian scholar, poet, literary theorist, and cardinal. He was an influential figure in the development of the Italian language, specifically Tuscan, as a literary medium, and his writings assisted in the 16th-century revival of interest in the works of Petrarch...
, Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno , born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited...
, Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
, and Giambattista Marino.
Terpening retired in 2008 and is now a professor emeritus of Italian at the University of Arizona.
Young adult fiction
Terpening began his first novel (In Light’s Delay) while an undergraduate at the University of OregonUniversity of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
in the late 60s, where he also worked as a features reporter for the Oregon Daily Emerald
Oregon Daily Emerald
The Oregon Daily Emerald is an independent daily newspaper published at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, United States. The paper, which has been published for more than 100 years, has trained many now-prominent writers and journalists and has made important contributions to journalism...
. He completed his second novel (The Echoes of Our Two Hearts, unpublished) as a graduate student at Berkeley. A third novel, The Turning, was released in 2001 and serves as the first volume in this trilogy of young-adult novels.
In Light’s Delay is the story of a young man’s quest for self-discovery and love in the mid-1960s. The novel depicts the experiences of Doug Herman and his friends over the course of ten nights, at different times and places, as it follows Doug from the family farm in Oregon to a series of adventures in Italy, Mexico, and back in California.
The Turning, a coming-of-age tale, tells the story of Artie Crenshaw, a teenager with an abusive father. At his job one night, Artie decides to postpone going home, and the events that follow as a result of this decision cause him more trouble but ultimately help spur his progression towards manhood. Karen Hoth, writing in the School Library Journal
School Library Journal
The School Library Journal is a monthly magazine with articles and reviews for school librarians, media specialists, and public librarians who work with young people. Articles cover a wide variety of topics, with a focus on technology and multimedia. Reviews are included for preschool to 4th grade,...
, praised the “well-written story,” proclaiming the characters “well developed” and the book itself “touching.” The book was selected for inclusion on The New York Public Library’s 2002 Books For The Teen Age List, the “best of the previous year’s publishing for teenagers,” by the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association for their Top Forty Young-Adult Novels for 2001, and by Appleton North High School (Appleton, Wisconsin
Appleton, Wisconsin
Appleton is a city in Outagamie, Calumet, and Winnebago Counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is situated on the Fox River, 30 miles southwest of Green Bay and 100 miles north of Milwaukee. Appleton is the county seat of Outagamie County. The population was 78,086 at the 2010 census...
) for their Top 25 Recommended Reading (2002).
Suspense
Inspired by the suspense fiction he was reading (notably Clive CusslerClive Cussler
Clive Eric Cussler is an American adventure novelist and marine archaeologist. His thriller novels, many featuring the character Dirk Pitt, have reached The New York Times fiction best-seller list more than seventeen times...
, Robert Ludlum
Robert Ludlum
Robert Ludlum was an American author of 23 thriller novels. The number of his books in print is estimated between 290–500 million copies. They have been published in 33 languages and 40 countries. Ludlum also published books under the pseudonyms Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd.-Life and...
, Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins is the principal pseudonym of UK novelist Harry Patterson. Patterson is the author of more than 60 novels. As Higgins, most have been thrillers of various types and, since his breakthrough novel The Eagle Has Landed in 1975, nearly all have been bestsellers...
, and David Morrell
David Morrell
David Morrell is a Canadian-American novelist, best known for his debut 1972 novel First Blood, which would later become the successful Rambo film franchise starring Sylvester Stallone. He has written 28 novels, and his work has been translated into 26 languages...
), Terpening began work on a thriller while teaching at Loyola University of Chicago, where he used the Chicago Public Library
Chicago Public Library
The Chicago Public Library is the public library system that serves the City of Chicago in Illinois. It consists of 79 branches, including a central library, two regional libraries, and branches distributed throughout the city....
for technical research (Cloud Cover, unpublished).
Storm Track
His first published thriller, Storm Track (New York: Walker & Company, 1989), was inspired, in part, by Cussler’s Mediterranean Caper. As part of the research for this book, Terpening became a certified scuba diver. Storm Track tells the story of a commercial oil-field diver, working on a jack-up off the coast of TunisiaTunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
, where his wife is killed in a terrorist attack. William C. McCully (Park Ridge Public Library, Illinois), writing in Library Journal
Library Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
, praised the thriller’s “non-stop action” and “breathtaking pace,” as well as its settings in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
, and Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
. And Suzy Smith, author of The Afterlife Codes, The Book of James, and Ghost Writers in the Sky, in The Write Word, called Terpening “the next Ken Follett
Ken Follett
Ken Follett is a Welsh author of thrillers and historical novels. He has sold more than 100 million copies of his works. Four of his books have reached the number 1 ranking on the New York Times best-seller list: The Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, Triple, and World Without End.-Early...
.”
League of Shadows
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
. The historical scenes depict the efforts of three spies in 1943 to infiltrate Italian leader Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
’s secret police, the OVRA
OVRA
The Organizzazione per la Vigilanza e la Repressione dell'Antifascismo was the secret police of the Kingdom of Italy, founded in 1927 under the regime of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and during the reign of King Victor Emmanuel III. The German Gestapo were the equivalent of the OVRA...
. Decades after that intrigue went horribly wrong, an unknown enemy begins to hunt down the former secret agents, and their one hope for survival is an ex-cop obsessed with his mission. The Midwest Book Review
Midwest Book Review
Midwest Book Review is an organization which maintains several book review publications. Established in 1976, the organization's Editor-in-Chief is James A. Cox. Midwest Book Review produces several book review publications per month, with a goal of encouraging small press and increasing literacy....
called the novel “an addictive read, weaving together human drive, determination, and betrayal into a gripping whole”, while Lucille Cormier, in The Historical Novels Review, said that “You can race through this suspense thriller riding the whirlwind of drug busts, jungle guerrilla attacks, gun fights, assassinations, and love affairs right into the breathtaking climax. Or, if you are disciplined enough, you can turn each page slowly and savor the extraordinary visual and historical detail Ron Terpening has painted into his complex story. Either way, you are in for a treat. This is a book to add to every collection of historical fiction
Historical fiction
Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional...
.” Joel Tscherne (Cleveland Public Library) noted in Library Journal
Library Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
that this is a novel that “fans of Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins is the principal pseudonym of UK novelist Harry Patterson. Patterson is the author of more than 60 novels. As Higgins, most have been thrillers of various types and, since his breakthrough novel The Eagle Has Landed in 1975, nearly all have been bestsellers...
’s thrillers will enjoy.”
Tropic of Fear
Influenced by movies such as Costa Gavras’s State of SiegeState of Siege
State of Siege is a 1972 French film directed by Costa Gavras starring Yves Montand and Renato Salvatori.-Summary:...
(1973) and books such as Robert Stone’s A Flag for Sunrise (1981), Terpening turned for his next thriller, Tropic of Fear (2006), to South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
. Barbara Conaty, writing in Library Journal
Library Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
, noted that “this thriller takes readers deep into the politics of Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
.” She thought that Terpening “imbue[d] his main characters with psychological depth, infuse[d] the book with local color galore, and fashion[ed] a deft plot.” As for the plot, two Americans, a hydrogeologist from Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
and a professor of German from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, both visiting Asunción
Asunción
Asunción is the capital and largest city of Paraguay.The "Ciudad de Asunción" is an autonomous capital district not part of any department. The metropolitan area, called Gran Asunción, includes the cities of San Lorenzo, Fernando de la Mora, Lambaré, Luque, Mariano Roque Alonso, Ñemby, San...
but originally unknown to one another, are inadvertently drawn into the middle of a conspiracy to overthrow the Paraguayan government. The male protagonist’s occupation came in for discussion in the Arizona Water Resource magazine. The editor wrote:
Taking popular entertainment as a measure one might likely conclude that those laboring in the hydrology and water resources field lack glamor, sex appeal and heroic qualities. Has any such character ever figured in plots on stage, screen, television or in books, to save the day, solve the mystery, woo the heroine and ride off into the sunset, or even to add spice and interest to a story?
Those who have noted this lamentable omission will undoubtedly be pleased to learn that Tropic of Fear, a recently published thriller, features a hydrogeologist as a worthy protagonist.
When I was a kid, my father told me about an accident that happened while he was working on Grand Coulee DamGrand Coulee DamGrand Coulee Dam is a gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation. It was constructed between 1933 and 1942, originally with two power plants. A third power station was completed in 1974 to increase its energy...
in Washington. (At the time, Grand Coulee DamGrand Coulee DamGrand Coulee Dam is a gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation. It was constructed between 1933 and 1942, originally with two power plants. A third power station was completed in 1974 to increase its energy...
was the world’s largest dam.) One day, a crane operator failed to see him, swung a quarter-ton bucket of wet concrete into his side, and knocked him off the dam. He managed to reach around in midair, grabbed the bottom rim of the bucket, swung out with it, and when it came back in dropped into the middle of a patch of fresh concrete.
My own “felicitous fall” took place when I was working on a new gym for Portland State College (now University). I was three stories up, walking along scaffolding with a bucket of clip-ties in my arms when I happened to step on a plank that went only halfway between two platforms. I woke up a few moments later, sixty feet below, lying on the concrete floor. I had landed on the bucket, which cracked three ribs, but that and the hard hat I was wearing saved my life.
Years later, when I sat down to write Tropic of Fear, a political thriller set in South America, I thought of those experiences. They became part of the background of a secondary character, “Dink” Denton, a former roughneck, ex-Apache helicopter pilot in both Panama
PanamaPanama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
and the First Gulf WarGulf WarThe Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
, now undercover in Paraguay as a Special Agent for the Drug Enforcement AdministrationDrug Enforcement AdministrationThe Drug Enforcement Administration is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Justice, tasked with combating drug smuggling and use within the United States...
.
In a Booklist
Booklist
Booklist is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. It is geared toward libraries and booksellers and is available in print or online...
review, David Pitt commented on “small flaws in the plot,” but observed that the “brisk clip” and pace of the action overcame that flaw. Christine Wald-Hopkins, a reviewer for the Tucson Weekly
Tucson Weekly
The Tucson Weekly is an alternative newsweekly that was founded in 1984 by Douglas Biggers and Mark Goehring, and serves the Tucson, Arizona metropolitan area of about 900,000 residents. The paper is a member of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies...
, noted this novel’s affinities with the earlier League of Shadows, pointing out that the “malignant confluence of internal and external forces in contemporary Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
. . . has its own fascist resonance.” And the Midwest Book Review
Midwest Book Review
Midwest Book Review is an organization which maintains several book review publications. Established in 1976, the organization's Editor-in-Chief is James A. Cox. Midwest Book Review produces several book review publications per month, with a goal of encouraging small press and increasing literacy....
concluded: “Vivid, descriptive, imaginative, and chilling in its presentation of the lengths human beings will go to dominate one another, Tropic of Fear is an exciting thrill ride from first page to last.”
Nine Days in October
Library Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
, says that Terpening “gets his latest book off to a slam-bang start in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
with a botched heist by terrorists. During the robbery, a visiting American professor is wounded and his daughter kidnapped, possibly for ransom.” Set in 1988, as competing government security organizations are preparing to welcome both the Soviet premier and the U.S. president to Italy, the novel’s complex plot, Pearce says, “revolves around a... professor's attempts to find his child while he is unknowingly trapped in an assassination scheme involving rogue CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
agents, venal U.S. executives, Soviet oligarchs, and corrupt Italian security officials.” He concludes that “The reader roots for a weary Italian security officer to do his job better than the villains do theirs. The author's research is evidently extensive, the writing competent, the suspense gripping, and the characterization of beastly adversaries and noble protagonists effective. The sense of place is bolstered with such an abundance of native vocabulary and street and building names that Italophiles will feel right at home.”
In an interview conducted by Contemporary Authors
Contemporary Authors
Contemporary Authors is an annually updated reference work published by Gale Cengage. It provides biographical details on over 120,000 writers in all genres whose works have been published in the English language...
, Terpening said: “My desire to create imaginary worlds through fiction springs, as I suspect it does for most writers, from a love of reading. From early grade school years, when I was given my first books (most still in my library today) and when I lived one house away from the public library in Gresham, Oregon
Gresham, Oregon
- Demographics :As of the census of 2000, there were 90,205 people, 33,327 households, and 22,695 families residing in the city. The population density was 4,071.6 people per square mile . There were 35,309 housing units at an average density of 1,593.8 per square mile...
(where I spent most of my free time), to the present, when I teach Italian literature
Italian literature
Italian literature is literature written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in Italy in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian....
for a living, my addiction has been not to candy, rock 'n' roll, TV, drugs, sex, or gambling, but to the book—both as an artifact and as a source of delight, a distraction from the constraints of life. A good book carries you away and never lets you down.”
Terpening has also reviewed over 125 novels (mostly suspense) for Library Journal
Library Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
.
Selected awards, fellowships, and honors
- The Renaissance Society of AmericaThe Renaissance Society of AmericaThe Renaissance Society of America is an academic association founded in 1954 supportingthe study of the Renaissance period, 1300–1650, in Western history....
, 1976 - Stanford, Mabelle McLeod Lewis Memorial Fund, 1976–77
- American Council of Learned SocietiesAmerican Council of Learned SocietiesThe American Council of Learned Societies , founded in 1919, is a private nonprofit federation of seventy scholarly organizations.ACLS is best known as a funder of humanities research through fellowships and grants awards. ACLS Fellowships are designed to permit scholars holding the Ph.D...
, 1981 - American Association of Teachers of Italian and the Università Italiana per Stranieri di Perugia, 1981
- Center for Renaissance Studies, The Newberry LibraryNewberry LibraryThe Newberry Library is a privately endowed, independent research library for the humanities and social sciences in Chicago, Illinois. Although it is private, non-circulating library, the Newberry Library is free and open to the public...
and Loyola University ChicagoLoyola University ChicagoLoyola University Chicago is a private Jesuit research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1870 under the title St...
, 1981 - National Endowment for the HumanitiesNational Endowment for the HumanitiesThe National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
, 1983 - United States Department of EducationUnited States Department of EducationThe United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...
, 1985–1986 - Regional Representative (Plains/Southwest), American Association of Teachers of Italian, 1996–1999
Young adult fiction
- In Light’s Delay (Tucson: Desert Bloom Press, 1988)
- The Turning (Cortaro: Desert Bloom Press, 2001)
Suspense
- Storm Track (New York: Walker and Company, 1989)
- League of Shadows (New York: Stuyvesant & Hoagland, 2005)
- Tropic of Fear (New York: Stuyvesant & Hoagland, 2006)
- Nine Days in October (New York: Stuyvesant & Hoagland, 2007)
Scholarly books
- Charon and the Crossing: Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Transformations of a Myth (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1985)
- Lodovico Dolce, Renaissance Man of Letters (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997)
- Beautiful Italy, Beloved Shores. An Illustrated Cultural History of Italy. Vol. 1. From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of the Roman Empire with accompanying CD (Cortaro: Desert Bloom Press, 2001). [Single-authored under the dual pseudonyms Gerret Lambertzen and Sarah Rapalje-Bergen.]
Scholarly editions
- Anthology of Italian Literature. Volume 1. Middle Ages and Renaissance, edited with annotations by Ronnie H. Terpening (Cortaro: Desert Bloom Press, 2002)
- Anthology of Italian Literature. Volume 1. Middle Ages and Renaissance, edited with annotations by Ronnie H. Terpening. 2nd edition (corrected, expanded, and enlarged in size) (Cortaro: Desert Bloom Press, 2006)
- Anthology of Italian Literature. Volume 2. From the Seventeenth Through the Twentieth Century, edited by Ronnie H. Terpening (Cortaro: Desert Bloom Press, 2005)
Scholarly bibliographies
- Comité de Rédaction, Bibliographie internationale de l'Humanisme et de la Renaissance, Vol. 11 [1975], ed. John A. Tedeschi (Genève: Librairie Droz, 1978)
- Comité de Rédaction, Bibliographie internationale de l'Humanisme et de la Renaissance, Vol. 12 [1976], ed. John A. Tedeschi (Genève: Librairie Droz, 1980)
Reviews
For fiction reviews, see the author’s web site.For scholarly reviews, see the author’s curriculum vitae.
Biographies of Ron Terpening
- Contemporary Authors, volume 248 (Detroit: Gale, 2006) ISBN 13: 9780787678777
Online biographical sources
- Ron Terpening Homepage (March 31, 2006).
- University of Arizona Website (March 31, 2006), profile of author.
- Source Database: Contemporary Authors Online, Thomson Gale, 2006. ISBN 9781414410081, Galegroup.com