Why did my father, Ross Lockridge, Jr., execute himself while his first novel, Raintree County, was the Nation's number one bestseller? Raintree County was a Book of the Month Club main selection. It had won the highly publicized MGM novel prize. A long excerpt appeared in LIFE, America's premier organ of popular culture which had hitherto not published fiction before. The novel was an informal contender for becoming the mythical Great American Novel...