Thomas Rogers, 79; novelist wrote ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’

Thomas Rogers, 79, whose first novel, “The Pursuit of Happiness,” was a National Book Award finalist and became a movie, died Sunday in State College, Pa. He appeared to have had a heart attack and died after a single-car crash in which he drove off the road, according to the State College Police Department.

Known for writing about youthful alienation with a comic touch, Rogers published four novels, including “The Pursuit of Happiness” (1968) about a disenchanted couple who exile themselves to Mexico. The 1971 film was directed by Robert Mulligan and starred Michael Sarrazin and Barbara Hershey.

His second novel, “The Confession of a Child of the Century by Samuel Heather” (1972) won the Rosenthal Prize from the National Academy of Arts and Letters.

The son of two chemists, Rogers was born in 1927 in Chicago. He earned a bachelor’s in English literature and history from Harvard in 1950 and a master’s and a doctorate in English literature from the University of Iowa.

At his death, he was an emeritus professor of English at Penn State University, where he taught creative writing for three decades before retiring in 1992.