Irving Wallace

U.S. novelist, short-story writer, and screenwriter Irving Wallace excelled at writing popular fiction based on current events. He began writing for various magazines at age 15. He wrote screenplays for a variety of studios from 1950 to 1959, when he turned solely to writing books. His first major bestseller was "The Chapman Report" (1960), a fictional account of a sexual research team's investigations of a wealthy Los Angeles suburb. Among other fictional works by Wallace are "The Prize" (1962) and "The Word" (1972). His meticulously researched fiction often has the flavor of spicy journalism. Wallace's books are structured around a strong narrative line and are laced with sex, facts and, most importantly, a moral that gives cohesion to conflicting elements. The universal appeal of Wallace's books has made most of them best-sellers. With their recurring dramatic confrontations, his novels lend themselves well to screenplay adaptation, and most of them have been filmed. Wallace has also compiled several nonfiction works with his family, including "The People's Almanac" (1975) and "The Book of Lists" (1977), both of which have spawned sequels.