Helen Harrison's “An Accidental Corpse' Earns Book Award

The death of artist Jackson Pollock in a 1956 car crash in Springs is the starting point for “An Accidental Corpse,” Helen A. Harrison’s recent novel. But this book is a murder mystery and while it uses actual history as its basis, the real story lies in the fictional artistic twists and turns that Ms. Harrison worked into the plot line, particularly in terms of the death of Edith Metzger, who was a passenger in Pollock’s car that night.

As the longtime director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in East Hampton, Ms. Harrison knows her subject well. On April 5, at a gala dinner in Chicago, she was awarded the 2019 Benjamin Franklin Gold award in the Fiction: Mystery & Suspense category for “An Accidental Corpse” which was published last August by Dunemere books.

The award program, now in its 30th year, is one of the highest national honors for independent publishers and is administered by the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). The organization consists of 160 publishing professionals including librarians, bookstore owners, reviewers, designers and editors.

“Sincere thanks to Elizabeth Doyle Carey and Carrie Doyle of Dunemere Books—both of whom are also award-winning authors—for their enthusiastic support, and to the IBPA awards jury for selecting my book for this honor,” said Ms. Harrison in a statement about the award.

Ms. Harrison is an adjunct art department instructor at Stony Brook University and an art columnist for The Sag Harbor Express. She has served as curator for both Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton and Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, and was an art critic and feature writer on art for The New York Times Long Island section. In addition to the books, journal articles, exhibition catalogs, and essays she has written, Ms. Harrison has also given many lectures, served on countless panels and committees, organized exhibitions, and made television appearances as an art expert.

Ms. Harrison will be speaking about “An Accidental Corpse” at the Montauk Library on Sunday, May 5, at 2:30 p.m.