Raven

by William Kinsolving

The history of aviation and the American aerospace industry coincides with the life of Buck Faulkner, whose boundless ambition transformed the people whose lives he manipulated and the armaments dynasty he created

Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

After graduating from Stanford, William Kinsolving began his professional life onstage—first at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, playing Richard II, then at The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Returning to New York, he acted under-, off-, and on Broadway and performed or directed at Stratford (CT), Harvard, Dartmouth, Café La Mama, and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where he received the San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Actor of the Year award.
He wrote his first play backstage, earning a Ford Foundation Playwriting Grant and a production at the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival. That success led to decades of work as a screenwriter and script doctor for every major film studio in Los Angeles, London, and Rome—ultimately contributing to more than fifty films.

Kinsolving later turned to fiction, publishing five novels, including a New York Times bestseller and multiple Literary Guild Main Selections. When traditional publishing contracted, he returned to playwriting, with new work presented in theatres across the country. His musical That Week with the Bachs premiered in 2023 at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral.

Compelled by the tectonic shifts in America today, Kinsolving returned to another time in American history when its social and cultural foundations were rumbling: The Twenties, and a love story that led to a trial that perforated the facades of privilege, sex, race and wealth: Black and White and Read All Over.