It’s the birthday of Scottish novelist A.J. Cronin (1896-1981, #nicelonglife), another in the proud tradition of physician-authors. Cronin’s novels—like Hatter’s Castle (1931), The Stars Look Down (1935), The Citadel (1937), The Green Years (1944), and many more—were enormously popular and made him one of the “big hitters” of his day.

Cronin was born in Cardross, Dumbartonshire, Scotland, and served in the navy during WWI. He received his M.D. from Glasgow University in 1925 and became a medical inspector of mines, investigating the health hazards of coal mining. (Spoiler alert: there are plenty.) He also set up a medical practice but had to quit early on because of his own poor health.

So instead of seeing patients, Cronin wrote a bestseller: Hatter’s Castle. The novel is about a tyrannical hatmaker who destroys his own family. (Show me a cruel, tyrannical person and I’ll show you a hatmaker.) The novel gets a whopping 4.27 stars on Goodreads from over 2,200 readers and will also make you feel much better about whatever dysfunction is going on in your own family, so read it. Or watch the movie  filmed in 1942, starring Robert Newton, Deborah Kerr, and James Mason.

Cronin’s fourth novel, The Stars Look Down, made him a Big Hairy Deal internationally and was also adapted for film; it tells the story of a coal mining family and their pride in being a coal mining family and yet, really, just don’t be a coal miner. (Really. Maybe consider selling solar panels instead. How many people get lung cancer from selling solar panels?) The Citadel, which won the National Book Award, also draws heavily on Cronin’s personal experience with coal mining and medical ethics and explores how greed can ruin an otherwise perfectly good doctor; it’s a memorable read highly recommended by me and over 5,600 members of Goodreads. (On the other hand, if 5,600 members of Goodreads told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it? Have some sense.) The Citadel was adapted for film in 1938 and a bunch of times since.

Cronin wrote a number of other novels, most notably The Keys of the Kingdom (1942), about a compassionate priest sent to China to be a missionary under brutally difficult circumstances.

Fun fact: Cronin’s wife, whom he married in 1921, was also a doctor; they had three sons. Cronin died at the age of 84 in Switzerland, where he’d spent the last 25 years of his life.

Have a fantastic Friday, remember not to do any coal mining today, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.