SOURCE: “Howard Fast: An American Life,” in Howard Fast: A Critical Companion, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, pp. 5-35.

In the following essay, Macdonald provides an overview of Fast's life, literary career, and numerous published works, drawing attention to the recurring preoccupations and unifying themes that link the author's biography and fiction.

I've been very fortunate, no question about it, because even during the blacklist years my books were selling by the millions all over the world. There were always enough royalties for us to live decently. I was very lucky, very fortunate. But I was born and grew up in the greatest, the noblest achievement of the human race on this planet—which was called the United States of America.

—Howard Fast, quoted by Mervyn Rothstein in “Howard Fast in a New Mode,” New York Times, March 10, 1987.

All writers create out of their life experiences, and their biographies...