In literary news, two deaths to report: First, Chiam Potok, author of The Chosen, died from brain cancer Tuesday. He was 73.

“Chaim Potok’s Orthodox upbringing and religious training influenced his novels and other work,” The Austin American-Statesman reports.

“‘He created an American stream that really didn’t exist before. He wrote directly from the interior of the Jewish theological experience, rather than from the social experience. And they were best sellers,’ the novelist Cynthia Ozick told The Associated Press.”

The Chosen, published in 1967 and Potok’s first and best-known novel, follows the friendship between two Jewish boys from different religious backgrounds.

It was made into a movie in 1982 starring Robby Benson as the young man from Brooklyn who breaks out of the Hassidic world through his interest in psychology. It also was made into an off-Broadway play.

Potok, who counted James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway among the authors who most inspired him, recalled that teachers at his Jewish parochial school were displeased with his taking time away from studying the Talmud by reading literature.

‘I knew that I would be a writer, that I would write from within the tradition. And that meant that I had to know the tradition from inside out. And that I needed to know the tradition without being blinded by it,’ Potok told The Philadelphia Inquirer earlier this year.

[…] Potok graduated from Yeshiva University in 1950 with a degree in English, then attended the Jewish Theological Seminary and was ordained a rabbi four years later. He served as an Army chaplain during the Korean War and in 1959 enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1965.

He also was editor in chief of the Jewish Publication Society of America, where he later became special projects editor, and taught at Penn, Bryn Mawr College and Johns Hopkins University.

Potok is survived by his wife of 44 years, his daughters, Rena and Naama, and his son, Akiva.

In other, uh, literary news, White supremacist William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries “and founder of the right-wing National Alliance, died Tuesday of cancer at his 400-acre compound,” The Los Angeles Times reports. Pierce was 68.

Pierce’s death is a ‘tremendous blow to the white supremacy movement,’ said Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino.

‘He was one of the brightest stars intellectually in the hate world but also the most reprehensible,’ Levin said. ‘He encouraged acts of violence and terrorism without facing legal liabilities by actually orchestrating them.’

Pierce’s novel, written under the pen name Andrew Macdonald and published in 1978, depicts a violent overthrow of the government by a small band of white supremacists who finance themselves through counterfeiting and bank robbery.

It has long been standard reading among supremacist groups and gained notoriety as a book favored by Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh.

..You don’t say? And I would’ve bet on Curious George Buys Some Fertilizer and Rents a Truck. But I digress…

Set at the end of the 20th century, [The Turner Diaries] describes a fictional truck bombing of FBI headquarters in Washington — a scene that roughly prefigures the Oklahoma City bombing.

While Pierce does not have an heir apparent, he does have surviving family members, said Bob DeMarais, Pierce’s business manager. Pierce also gave specific instructions to his closest associates to ensure the organization’s survival.

Kevin Strom will continue to edit the group’s magazine and newsletter, and will begin producing Pierce’s radio show, ‘American Dissident Voices.’

[…] Pierce, who has a doctorate in physics, told the Associated Press in 1996 that he became interested in politics while he was a professor at Oregon State University and saw the government tolerating Vietnam War protesters.

…And you know how those anti-government militia types hate it when the government doesn’t step in and immediately use an iron boot to choke off protest and crush dissent. Like at that compound in Waco, say. Or at Ruby Ridge…

[…]Pierce operated his 1,500-member group from an isolated two-building compound on remote land about 140 miles from Charleston that he bought in 1985 because longtime farmers in the area were white. Pierce moved to the compound after spending 18 years working in Washington, D.C.

‘He came for cheap land in an out-of-the-way place,’ said Marge Montgomery, 57, a resident of the area. ‘I’m someone who believes in live-and-let-live and I believe a lot of people around here are like that.’

Beverly Eads, owner of the Country Roads Cafe, said Pierce was a frequent customer. She described him as a smart man who kept to himself.

‘When anyone dies, it’s a shame, but it’s too bad he didn’t feel the same way,’ she said.

No Beverly. It’s not always a shame.