H. Richard Hornberger

H. Richard Hornberger (February 1, 1924 – November 4, 1997) was an American writer and surgeon, born in Trenton, New Jersey, who wrote under the pseudonym Richard Hooker. His most famous work was MASH (1968), which served as the basis for a successful movie and television series. He attended the Peddie School, graduated from Bowdoin College and trained at Cornell Medical School before becoming a physician for the United States Army during the Korean War, and used his experience at the 8055th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital as background for his work. Hornberger based the character of Hawkeye Pierce on himself, although reportedly he did not like Alan Alda's portrayal in the TV series, while he viewed the original Robert Altman movie many times.

Hornberger wrote several sequels, among them M*A*S*H Goes to Maine (1972) and M*A*S*H Mania (1977), neither of which enjoyed the commercial success of the original. Both books' portrayals of the characters were entirely independent of the movie and TV characterizations, as they were based upon Hornberger's own experiences after the Korean War, which included a stint working for the Veterans Administration, qualifying for his surgical boards and then setting himself up in private practice.

While MASH was a fairly faithful reflection of Hornberger's service in Korea, the sequels M*A*S*H Goes to Maine and M*A*S*H Mania were diverse representations of the "Swamp Gang's" post-Korea activities in the fictional town of Spruce Harbour, Maine, from 1953 to the 1970s. These activities mirrored Hornberger's settling in the area surrounding Waterville, Maine, up to the publication of M*A*S*H Mania in 1977. The latter two novels are characterised by gentle humour, stereotypical local characters and a nostalgic look at Maine and its people through Hornberger's eyes. Throughout, the "Swamp Gang" prospers, gets its own way most of the time and generally become more conservative as the years pass, playing golf and being a thorn in the side of "summer complaints" and the local hierarchy.

In addition, there was an extensive series of books (bearing Hooker's name but ghostwritten by William E. Butterworth) in which the characters travel to Moscow, New Orleans, San Francisco, Paris, etc. These were hastily written to capitalize on the TV show's popularity and were of dubious literary merit. The action was transposed to the 1970s so that people such as Henry Kissinger could be lampooned, but this would have made some of the characters quite old, if the descriptions in the first book were to be believed. For instance, Hot Lips would have been into her 60s, having been described as "fortyish" in the first novel.

Even after the success of his book and its screen adaptations, Hornberger remained a surgeon in Waterville, Maine, until his retirement in 1988. He died at the age of 73 4 November, 1997 of leukemia.

Richard Hooker