Dennis Murphy completed his award-winning novel “The Sergeant” in Ajijic

Novelist and screenplay writer Dennis Rorke Murphy, was born 27 August 1932 in Salinas, California. His family also had a property in Big Sur (then known as Slate’s Hot Springs), now the site of the Esalen Institute. Murphy enjoyed a privileged childhood and became an outstanding child pianist (though he gave up playing in his mid-teens) and a scratch golfer.

The Sergeant, Murphy’s first book, was widely acclaimed. It was set at an Army camp in postwar France, where a sergeant and a French girl vied for the attentions of a handsome young draftee. The Sergeant was the literary sensation of 1958 and became an international best seller with multiple printings and translations. John Steinbeck, a family friend, considered it a remarkable achievement, with “none of the faults of a young first novelist.”

Murphy had begun writing The Sergeant while studying at Stanford, but had quit university after two years to enlist in the U.S. Army. After serving in France, where he acquired fluent French, and elsewhere, Murphy left the Army and married Ashley Susanna Justice. The young couple moved to Ajijic in 1956, where Murphy completed his book, and Ashley gave birth to the couple’s only child the following year.

Murphy later claimed that he normally wrote for between four and six hours every morning, before spending the afternoons gardening. He told an interviewer that he did no research, and claimed only to be a writer, not a scholar.

Even before it was complete, in 1957 his novel was chosen over 74 others and awarded the inaugural Joseph Henry Jackson prize and $1000 for a “first novel in progress.” The formal announcement stated that, “Mr Murphy, who now lives in Ajijic, Mexico, submitted about one-third of his yet unfinished novel. The book has since been completed and submitted to Viking Press.”

The Murphys returned to Big Sur, California, in the latter part of 1957. The Sergeant was published the following year, when Murphy was still only 25 years old.

Tragically his wife, Ashley, an artist who had exhibited her oil paintings several times in Sausalito, was killed in a car crash in May 1959.

Murphy worked in Southern California for many years as a screenwriter, and wrote the screenplay for the movie adaptation of The Sergeant, directed by John Flynn and starring Rod Steiger, released by Warner Brothers in 1968. Murphy’s other film credits as a screenwriter include Eye of the Devil (1966) and The Todd Killings (1971).

Murphy moved to San Francisco in 1994. He had reportedly completed a second novel, The Lions of Big Sur, shortly before his death on 6 October 2005, at the age of 73. He was survived by his third wife, Kelly.

Comments, corrections and additional material are welcome, whether via the comments feature or email.

• Michael Hargraves. 1992. Lake Chapala: A literary survey; plus an historical overview…. (Los Angeles: Michael Hargraves). 48 pp.
• San Francisco Chronicle. 2005. “Dennis Murphy – screenwriter, author of ‘The Sergeant’” (obit.) San Francisco Chronicle, 11 October 2005, 17.
• The Californian: 3 June 1957, 4.
• Dorothy H. Vera. 1958. “Steinbeck Lauds Dennis Murphy On First Novel, ‘The Sergeant.'” The Californian: 22 February 1958, 8.

Comments, corrections and additional material are welcome, whether via comments or email.

Tony Burton

Tony Burton’s books include “Lake Chapala: A Postcard History” (2022), “Foreign Footprints in Ajijic” (2022), “If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s historic buildings and their former occupants” (2020), (available in translation as “Si Las Paredes Hablaran”), “Mexican Kaleidoscope” (2016), and “Lake Chapala Through the Ages” (2008).

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