He developed a rheumatic heart condition,[9] so his parents placed him in the Stanford Children's Convalescent home[10][11][12] (and given heavy doses of phenobarbital), for a year, during which time they returned to Kentucky, where the Tevis family had been given an early land grant in Madison County. Walter traveled across country alone by train at age 11 to rejoin his family in Kentucky. He made friends with Toby Kavanaugh, a fellow high school student, and learned to shoot pool in the Kavanaugh mansion in Lawrenceburg.[13] In the library there, he read science fiction for the first time.[14] They remained lifelong friends. Kavanaugh later became the owner of a pool room[15] in Lexington, which would have an impact on Tevis's writing.[16][dead link]
After his discharge, he graduated from Model Laboratory School in 1945. He entered the University of Kentucky, where he received B.A. (1949) and M.A. (1954) degrees in English literature and studied with A. B. Guthrie Jr., the author of The Big Sky. While a student there, Tevis worked in a pool hall and published a story about pool written for Guthrie's class. He later attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he received an MFA in creative writing in 1960.
Tevis taught English literature and creative writing at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, from 1965 to 1978, where he was named University Professor. Tevis was a member of the Authors Guild.
On the surface, Man is the tale of an alien who comes to earth to save his own civilization and, through adversity, distraction, and loss of faith ("I want to... But not enough"), fails. Just beneath the surface, it might be read as a parable of 1950s conventionalism and of the Cold War. One of the many other things it is, in Tevis's own words, is "a very disguised autobiography," the tale of his removal as a child from San Francisco, "the city of light," to rural Kentucky, and of the childhood illness that long confined him to bed, leaving him, once recovered, weak, fragile, and apart. It was also – as he realized only after writing it – about his becoming an alcoholic. Beyond that, it is, of course, a Christian parable, and a portrait of the artist. It is, finally, one of the most heartbreaking books I know, a threnody on great ambition and terrible failure, and an evocation of man's absolute, unabridgeable aloneness.[20]
During his time teaching at Ohio University, Tevis became aware that the level of literacy among students was falling at an alarming rate. That observation gave him the idea for Mockingbird (1980), set in a grim and decaying New York City in the 25th century. The population is declining, no one can read, and robots rule over the drugged, illiterate humans. With the birth rate dropping, the end of the species seems a possibility. Tevis was a nominee for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1980 for Mockingbird. During one of his last televised interviews, he revealed that PBS once planned a production of Mockingbird as a follow-up to their 1979 film of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven.
Tevis married Jamie Griggs in 1957, and they remained together for over twenty years before getting divorced. They had two children, a son, William Thomas,[21] and daughter, Julia Ann.[22]
Tevis was a frequent smoker, gambler and alcoholic, and his works often included these vices as central themes.[23] Tevis took some of the money he earned from the movie rights to The Hustler and moved his family to Mexico, where he later claimed that he "stayed drunk for eight months."[23] When Tevis was drinking, he couldn't write.[23] According to his son Will, "[Walter Tevis] is the [anti-]hero of all his own books."[17][clarification needed] Having a heart condition, Tevis was given phenobarbital at a young age. This is considered part of the inspiration for the character Beth Harmon in The Queen's Gambit, and according to Tevis, part of the reason for his later alcoholism. Tevis was able to overcome his alcohol habit in the 1970s with help from Alcoholics Anonymous.[17]
In 2003, Jamie Griggs Tevis published her autobiography, My Life with the Hustler. She died August 4, 2006.[24]
In 1983, Tevis married Eleanora Walker,[25] later the trustee of the Walter Tevis Copyright Trust. She died December 9, 2016, at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, in an apparent suicide.[26] Walter Tevis's literary output is represented by the Susan Schulman Literary Agency.[27]
"Alien Love" (original title: "The Man from Budapest") Cosmopolitan, April 1959. Adapted as a teleplay for NBC's The Loretta Young Show, season 7, episode 12, aired December 13, 1959.
"A Short Ride in the Dark", Toronto Star Weekly Magazine, April 4, 1959.
"Gentle Is the Gunman" Saturday Evening Post, August 13, 1960.
"The Other End of the Line", The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November 1961.
"The Machine That Hustled Pool", Nugget, February 1961.
^"Betty Jean Tevis, Born 08/14/1925 in California". CaliforniaBirthIndex.org. Retrieved November 14, 2020. Betty Jean Tevis was born on August 14, 1925 in San Francisco County, California. Her father's last name is Tevis, and her mother's maiden name is Bacon.
^ ab"Betty Jean Tevis Balke Eckdahl. Obituary (2010)". legacy.com. Lexington Herald-Leader. February 24, 2010. Archived from the original on November 15, 2020. Retrieved November 15, 2020. Her brother, novelist Walter Tevis, died in 1984. Her father, Walter Stone Tevis, was a native of Madison County, KY and descendent of a pioneer family there
^"Walter Stone Tevis, Born 02/28/1928 in California". CaliforniaBirthIndex.org. Retrieved November 14, 2020. Walter Stone Tevis was born on February 28, 1928, in San Francisco County, California. His father's last name is Tevis, and his mother's maiden name is Bacon.
^"Overview of Walter Tevis Collection"(PDF). Ohio University: Robert E. and Jean R. Mahn Center for Archives & Special Collections. Archived from the original(PDF) on May 27, 2018. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
^ abBerkley, June Langford (Fall 2001), "Remembering Walter Tevis: Finding the Stories that Must Be Told", Ohioana Quarterly, The Ohio legacy, Ohioana library, … he told the book editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1980 after he had sought treatment for his alcoholism, divorced, resigned from the Ohio University faculty, and moved to Manhattan where he was writing again.[permanent dead link]
