Keeper of the Clown Bell

William Harrison was a prophetic writer of considerable learning and talent with an unflinching focus on the human condition and a shitlib sentimentality that secured a tenured academic seat at the University of Arkansas . This Razorback's contribution to American arts & letters is significant as a fine writer and storyteller and as a teacher to the many talented scribblers who attended the UofA Master of Fine Arts program. As is often the case with writers it is a throw away story or literary folly that captures the attention of some editor or producer and in Mr. Harrison's case that was a piece of futuristic fluff published in Esquire Magazine ( 1973 ) titled "The Rollerball Murders." The director Norman Jewison put it on celluloid and cast the great James Caan as the stories stoic hero Jonathan E. The screenplay , also written by Harrison, builds on the short story and creates a fully realized aesthetic of a dystopian future growing out of cultural (R)evolutio