There are eight books in the series (one of which was published posthumously). and Tom D.) The Great Brain novels are structured like a collection of short stories, in which Tom either swindles people and then rationalizes it by claiming it was to teach them a lesson, or solves an important problem for the community. Standish, the mean schoolmaster, regret the day they came up against The Great Brain. He omitted his oldest sibling Isabelle and his younger brothers Charles and Gerald, gave his older brother William the name Sweyn, and invented a family custom of giving sons the middle name Dennis (his older brothers were William J. The story is told by J.D., a sometimes confounded but always admiring younger brother.

Fitzgerald changed many family details in the Great Brain series. The Great Brain is based on his brother, Tom. In the 1960s, he turned his attention to books for children, writing the highly successful The Great Brain series, in which his characters are loosely based on people from his own family and community, including himself. Fitzgerald had many stories published in magazines, and he also co-wrote two textbooks about creative writing. Other novels for adults about late nineteenth and early twentieth century Utah followed. įitzgerald published his first novel, Papa Married a Mormon, in 1955. He left Utah in 1925, at the age of 18, and held a variety of jobs, including playing in a jazz band, working at a bank and working for a steel company. He had two older brothers, Thomas (1902-1988 the basis for the character known as the Great Brain) and William two younger brothers, Charles and Gerald and an older sister, Isabelle (known as 'Belle'). John Dennis Fitzgerald (Febru– May 30, 1988) was an American author, most notable for The Great Brain series of children's books.įitzgerald was born in Price, Utah, the son of an Irish Catholic father and a Scandinavian mother who was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Papa Married a Mormon and Mama's Boarding House

The great brain fitzgerald