O’Connor, Edwin (1918-1968), was an American author best known for his novels about Irish Roman Catholic life in a city that resembles Boston. The Edge of Sadness (1961) won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The novel is a sympathetic account of three generations of an Irish family as seen through the eyes of an Irish Catholic priest. Another well-known O’Connor novel is The Last Hurrah (1956), a story about a corrupt but generous and understanding big-city political boss.
Edwin Greene O’Connor was born on July 29, 1918, in Providence, Rhode Island, and graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1939. He began his career as a radio announcer, producer, and writer. His first novel, The Oracle (1951), deals with his radio experiences. O’Connor also wrote I Was Dancing (1964), a novel about an old vaudeville performer and his fight to avoid being sent to a retirement home. O’Connor died on March 23, 1968.
