Necrology

John Treadwell Nichols II '62

Jul. 23, 1940-Nov. 27, 2023

When The Sterile Cuckoo appeared in print in the spring of 1965, more than one Hamilton freshman read it with the expectation that the book would reveal the underground nature of social life on the Hill: the challenges of forming and maintaining a relationship with a female contemporary studying at a college many miles away and the possibility of heartbreak were that relationship to end. When, in 1969, the film version the novel appeared, it enjoyed a wide viewership among students and alumni alike. Many of the former had roles in its production: shot almost entirely on campus and the surrounding area, the movie had only three professional actors in its cast, with other players drawn from students as well as Clinton locals, and dozens of undergraduates who populated party scenes. Alumni flocked to theaters to see the campus star in a Hollywood film, one for which Liza Minnelli was nominated for an Academy Award. Both groups debated the veracity of the film’s portrayal of college life. 

The author of that all-important book in Hamilton lore, John Treadwell Nichols II ’62, died in Taos, N.M., on Nov. 27, 2023. Born in Berkeley, Calif., on July 23, 1940, John moved around the country as a child, living in six different communities as his father took on various assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency. Although Washington, D.C., was his family home during his high school years, he came to Hamilton from the Loomis School in Windsor, Conn. 

From the outset, John intended to become a writer. In an interview with NPR, he recalled that he had started writing stories at age 10 and wrote one per year before he finished high school. As noted in his admission application, he saw value in coming to the College: “Since I am interested in making a career of writing, I believe it would be to my advantage to attend Hamilton, which offers courses in English composition and literature, and various art and history courses which will teach me to better appreciate not only writing, but the world I shall be interested in writing about.”

Majoring in English literature and a member of Theta Delta Chi fraternity, John’s extracurricular activities centered on sports, principally hockey and secondarily football and track. He played hockey all four years and was team co-captain as a senior. He played fullback during his one year on the football team. He ran track during his first two years, and cross country during his junior and senior years. He was also a member of the Doers & Thinkers honor society, Was Los, and Pentagon. During his final two years, he was on the Honor Court and the staff of The Spectator, joined the Student Senate as a junior, and performed with The Charlatans in his final year.

John was one of two seniors awarded the William Duncan Saunders Prize for Creative Writing. As noted by a classmate in the 1962 version of The Hamiltonian: “John leaves the Hill with a tuned guitar, a shattered hockey stick, a worn typewriter, a well-earned Hamilton sheepskin, and the respect of all who have known him.” He owned a typewriter before entering Hamilton, and he was never without one for the rest of his life; all of his published works first saw the light of day on such a device, never a laptop. 

From Hamilton, John traveled to Barcelona, Spain, to live with his grandmother and to write The Sterile Cuckoo, which he completed in 1963 and sold to his publisher for a princely advance of $500. While it was his first novel to be published, it was the eighth such effort that he had completed. Returning to New York, he married Ruth Wetherell Harding, the first of his three wives. They had a son and a daughter. 

Living in a fifth-floor walk-up apartment in what is now Soho, he began to draft five novels concurrently. Of these, The Wizard of Loneliness was published in 1966. His day jobs included unloading trucks and playing guitar in coffeehouses. He also traveled through Central America, principally Guatemala, during the winter of 1964-65. He was shocked by the poverty and exploitation in the region and by the unmistakable evidence that the United States had played a role in creating that environment.

In 1969, his life changed when Paramount Pictures released the film version of The Sterile Cuckoo, which introduced the world to Liza Minnelli as “Pookie,” the girlfriend of “uptight college freshman” Jerry Payne, played by Wendell Burton. John’s share of the film’s proceeds, which totalled a reported $14 million at the box office, enabled him to leave New York and write full time.

He and his family moved to Taos, N.M., a town he had visited for five days in the summer of 1957 between his junior and senior years at Loomis. During that brief stay, he found a job in construction building adobes. The experience, including his first introduction to the Hispanic culture of the region, was certainly a major factor in his decision to live there permanently.

Shortly after his arrival, John became politically engaged in the community and the state. From 1970 to 1972, he wrote what he later described as “muckraking” articles for The New Mexico Review about land and water use, ongoing sources of conflict between the Hispanic and white communities, with the latter counting on greater political power and financial resources to support their ambitions. No doubt his travels to Guatemala prepared him to confront comparable realities in Northern New Mexico.

In 1974, as his first marriage was ending, John’s third novel, The Milagro Beanfield War, was published. Taking up the subject that had been central to his articles and political activism, it featured a fictional Hispanic agricultural community in Northern New Mexico and its resistance to developers determined to take control of the town’s water resources and land to advance their own goals. It was the first of what would ultimately become a trilogy, including The Magic Journey (1978) and The Nirvana Blues (1981), all of which were set in and around Taos.

Milagro proved to be popular on many college campuses and was celebrated in New Mexico. For a time, it was among the most widely read novels about Hispanic communities. In 1988, Robert Redford directed a film adaptation, and John wrote the screenplay. The cast included Rubén Blades, Sônia Braga, Melanie Griffith, and Christopher Walken. John wrote other screenplays during the 1980s and 1990s, but other than Milagro, only his uncredited work on Missing (1982), directed by the Greek director Costa-Gravas, was produced.

John continued to be a prolific writer, and, by 2020, had produced 13 novels and nine works of nonfiction, all focusing upon Taos and Northern New Mexico in one way or another. Three of his non-fiction works constitute a second trilogy: If Mountains Die: A New Mexico Memoir (1979), The Last Beautiful Days of Autumn (1982), and On the Mesa (1986). His final book was a memoir: I Got Mine: Confessions of a Midlist Writer (2022). According to his daughter, John was at the time of his death in the process of editing an anthology of letters, essays, and unpublished manuscripts.

John was a creature of strict habit and discipline when it came to writing. During the week, beginning around 8 p.m., he would sit down at his typewriter and work. He would not stop until 7:30 or 8 a.m. the next morning. He would then sleep until mid-afternoon and devote the day to errands and socializing. By contrast, his weekends were wide open.

When he wasn’t writing, John was a dedicated fisherman and photographer. According to his friend Taylor Streit, a famous New Mexico fishing guide, John “was the one who would go on [river] trails you almost needed a rope to get down. He fished obscure places I’ve never fished and probably never will.” Not surprisingly, the subject of John’s photographs was the natural beauty of his adopted state.

For John, Hamilton offered a wealth of opportunities: “I got to play sports, be a journalist, act in plays, do music, hang with drunken rollers, deal with Honor Court issues and Pentagon, write literature, talk with a wide range of professors, and have friends all across the spectrum in every walk of life. I could be macroscopic, interested in everything, and I have been that way the rest of my life. Hamilton was also so conservative it taught me to be radical.”

On May 21, 2000, President Eugene Tobin conferred upon John the honorary degree Doctor of Literature. After summarizing his many accomplishments as an author, Tobin said: “All reflect your fervent belief in the power of literature to contribute to a better world, and with rare and remarkable integrity, you have devoted your life’s work to that end.” 

John T. Nichols II is survived by his son, daughter, and three granddaughters.

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