There is a book written by Malcolm Gladwell titled “Outliers”, where good ole’ American gumption is laid by the wayside. It is a book about how certain events and situations, occurred in people’s lives that catapulted them into incredible wealth and notoriety. How does someone become a Bill Gates? There is no way that one chooses that specific course in life because we do not live in a perfect world. There is a term in statistics called “outlier”. An outlier appears because of changes in its environmental performance, chaotic circumstances, human error, natural divergences and unconventionalities.
At his death in 1916, Jack London was the bestselling author in America. Being birthed in 1876 in San Francisco shantytown U.S.A. as John Griffith Chaney on January the twelfth, with the odds of survival stacked against him, failure awaited another gift. Before leaving the womb Jack London was sired a bastard as his father deserted his mother with the reason being the child she carried inside of her should be aborted. Often labeled a spiritualist, Florence Wellman Chaney had found the end of her rope and decided that it was time for her exit as well. She overdosed with a slight admixture and attempted to suicide with a bullet to the brain. For all of her effort she lived achieving a severe head wound and furthering her distorted sense of reality. When Jack was born he was turned over to Virginia Prentiss, an African American whom had been freed from slavery. Virginia and her family referred to him as “Jack” and when his mother married John London late in the same year of 1876, John “Jack” Griffith Chaney became Jack London. John London adopted baby Jack.
Eventually the family wound up in Oakland and when Jack had finished elementary school, he went to work in a cannery for a few years until the age of fifteen when he began sailing the bay as an oyster pirate. As he got older Jack became a member of the California Fishing Patrol opting to jump the fence and go after the pirates he’d been with. Consequently, he was introduced to alcohol in which he drank his share and then some, and then some more. There was a decision made early in his fishing patrol career that there were better jobs to be had. He signed on to a sealing schooner and when he returned in 1893 entered a writing contest, won, and the San Francisco Morning Call published his first prize winning story, “Typhoon off the Coast of Japan.” Give credit here to his insatiable desire to read books, observe his surroundings and worldly experience. Not only those, but know that it is notable that the second and third awards went to students at California and Stanford universities.” Chairman K. London, 1922. In the same year, America fell into a depression and jobs were few and far between. Young London soaked in the consequences of an inept economy and joined Coxey’s Army in what is known as the March of the Unemployed where the jobless traveled across the country to protest in front of the White House. Jack didn’t make it to D.C. but the experience bolted him to strong socialist edge that stuck to him through his lifetime.
A spell in the Northern Arctic in search of gold was next for London and the time spent there nearly ended his life. The near death experience pushed him to the decision of becoming a writer. The words seemed to pour forth and his production in writing escalated into the prolific. In 1899 Jack London became what is considered a professional writer with the publication of “The Man on the Trail: A Klondike Christmas” in Overland Monthly v. 33 Jan. 1899, 36-40. At the turn of the century and fifteen stories later, Jack London was $156.50 richer. London proclaimed that he continued to write at least a thousand words a day. Jump forward three years and “The Call of the Wild,” London’s most famous work sold 10,000 copies on opening day, he was twenty seven years old
In the year that followed, London became a war correspondent for the Hearst Syndicate in the Russo-Japanese War and published his second most famous novel, “The Sea Wolf.” He went on to lecture about the country’s need for socialism, maintain his dedication to alcoholism and continue to write up until his death at the age of forty in November of 1916 after resigning from the Socialist Party in the same year. Influencing the likes of Ernest Hemingway and aspiring young writers up to the present, Jack London survived most of the greatest odds, even those self-inflicted, and set the bar for what it takes to be a best-selling writer.
Sources:
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and Co., c2008. Print
Hari, Johann. “Jack London’s Dark Side.” Slate. 15 Aug. 2010. Web. 12 Nov. 2011.
Wichlan, Daniel J. The Fiction of Jack London: A Chronological Biography. www.jacklondons.net, 26 Nov. 2011.
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