Dr. Vincent D. Balitas

Dr. Vincent D. Balitas, writer, teacher and raconteur, died peacefully on August 15 in his home in Pottsville, Pa. He was 81 years old. Vincent was the author of The Great Bunhill Fields Costume Party and Other Stories, a novel of 11 interrelated short fictions; The Only Survivor and Other Poems; and numerous critical essays, book reviews and other works. He was preparing a manuscript, The Delancy Quintet and Other Fiction and Poems, for publication at the time of his death. Among his many professional accomplishments, he was Senior Fulbright Scholar at Maria-Curie Sklowdowska University in Lublin, Poland, and served as assistant professor of American and British literature at Pahlavi University in Shiraz, Iran. He taught at West Chester University, DeSales University and Penn State–Berks, among other schools and institutions. He was awarded a Pennsylvania Grant for Poetry and named a Poetry Fellow with the Pennsylvania Council on Arts. With the support and assistance of the Schuylkill County Council for the Arts, Vincent organized and served as chairman of two major literary events, the John O’Hara conferences of 1978 and 1980, both held in Pottsville—unique affairs, as almost all literary symposiums are sponsored and held on college campuses. He brought O’Hara’s leading scholars and biographers, including Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Frank MacShane, to Pottsville for the conferences, and created walking and bus tours of the Region that become staples of subsequent O’Hara celebrations. Vincent also founded and edited The John O’Hara Journal, which published scholarly articles about O’Hara and other American authors, as well as fiction and poetry, from 1978 to 1982. Vincent’s passion was reading and writing, and he assembled a world-class library at his home, including extensive collections in history, art and criticism. He concentrated on modern first editions and poetry; signed and numbered chap books; and limited editions and broadsides. He also loved to eat and drink and was a self-proclaimed wine snob and gourmand: good wine, good food, good conversation, preferably all at once. His Bunhill Fields novel centered on those pleasures, his characters never far from table. Here, the narrator of the novel describes a typical dinner gathering:

“I settled for four each of the oysters, and two flutes of

Cristal. There were bottles of Muscadet from Chateau

de Chasseloir, and a Chablis from Domaine Lorche,

two wines I like with shellfish…. The soup was heady

with garlic, the sherry’s alcohol cooked off, a poached

egg afloat. Some drank a traditional Mandileno, but I

stayed with the Cristal. Thirteen Roasted Iberico Black-

Footed Suckling Pigs were carried to carving stations

while the serving staff asked each of us what part of the

piglets we preferred, I opted for a shank and some

snout meat.”

Vincent was born Jan. 21, 1944, to William D. Balitas, a prominent Pottsville lawyer, and Kathryn Regina (Curran) Balitas. He was a graduate of Nativity BVM High School, the University of Scranton (Bachelor of Arts 1965, Master of Arts 1970) and Indiana University of Pennsylvania (Doctor of Philosophy 1973). He met his wife, Margaret or “Maggie,” while at Indiana, and after their graduations they lived for several years in San Francisco, Calif., where Vincent taught at the Bay Area Center. He and Maggie eventually divorced, but his books were dedicated “for Margaret,” and “for M., again.” Over the course of his eight decades, Vincent formed lasting friendships with fellow Pottsvillians—many who shared his passion for golf—and with prominent poets and writers in the United States and overseas. He was a grand storyteller (and loved to hear others tell stories), and he enjoyed playing the role of the rake—when not playing at being a curmudgeon. But Vincent was generous and kind-hearted, despite the trouble he took to burnish his rapscallion image. He held strong opinions, especially when it came to writers and books, but welcomed debate and playful argle-bargle—so long as his glass was full and the table laden. He was, in a word, Falstaffian, and was loved and admired by friends and colleagues both—and will be sorely missed.

Early in his writing career, Vincent worked on a semi-autobiographical poem called Heckscherville Road, sections of which he published in The Only Survivor. One such section can serve as an epitaph he no doubt would approve:

dead mike frozen

gently propped against

the wall as the lads

to the church

with him were headed

stopped at curran’s

saloon to cheer

iced mike on his way

they thought

hours later

defrosted mike drunk

as he sprawled under

the corkless square

dartboard