Literary Career and Death
After losing the election, Carter relocated to Sweetwater, Texas, where he started over. He began work on his first novel, spending days researching in Sweetwater's public library. He distanced himself from his past, began to call his sons "nephews", and renamed himself Forrest Carter, in honor of e Civil War general Nathan Bedford Forrest.
He and his wife later moved to St. George's Island, Florida. There Carter completed a sequel to his first novel, as well as two books on American Indian themes. Carter separated from his wife, who remained in Florida. In the late 1970s, he relocated to Abilene, Texas.
Carter's best-known fictional works are The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales (republished in 1975 under the title Gone to Texas) and The Education of Little Tree (1976), originally published as a memoir. The latter sold modestly - as fiction - during Carter's life. It became a sleeper hit in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s.
Clint Eastwood directed and starred in a 1976 film adaptation of Josey Wales, retitled The Outlaw Josey Wales after the book was sent to his offices by Carter as an unsolicited submission and Eastwood's partner read and put his support behind it. At this time, neither man knew of Carter's past as a Klansman and rabid segregationist. In 1997, after the success of the paperback edition of The Education of Little Tree, a film adaptation was produced. Originally intended as a made-for-TV movie, it was given a theatrical release.
In 1978, Carter published Watch for Me on the Mountain, a fictionalized biography of Geronimo. (It was reprinted in 1980 in an edition titled, Cry Geronimo!)
Carter was working on The Wanderings of Little Tree, a sequel to The Education of Little Tree, as well as a screenplay version of the book, when he died in Abilene on June 7, 1979. The cause of death was reported as heart failure, but alleged to have resulted from a fistfight with his son. Carter's body was returned to Alabama for burial near Anniston. No family members attended his funeral.
Read more about this topic: Asa Earl Carter
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