Louisville poet, author and playwright Thomas Eagan dies

  Thomas P. Eagan (Photo:  McAdam)

One of Louisville’s most honored playwrights, Thomas P. Eagan, died of cancer last Friday, November 6, 2009. Eagan was well known in the arts community as a producer, director, and actor in locally-performed plays. He was also an accomplished poet, novelist, and former English professor. Originally from New York, he was 69 when he died.

Tom moved to Louisville in 1982 to teach at the University of Louisville and Jefferson Community College. Not content with his degree from St. John’s University (N.Y.), and his master’s in English from Notre Dame (Ind.), he “picked up” a Juris Doctor degree from U of L’s Brandeis School of Law in 1989.

The academic and man of letters became one of Louisville’s foremost criminal defense attorneys, practicing primarily in Jefferson County’s District and Circuit courts. At the same time, he continued writing poetry, plays, and novellas. He also established a literary publishing company, Aran Press, which concentrated on publishing plays, poetry, and novels by budding authors.

(Aran Press)

Egan wrote more than 20 novels, novellas and collections of poetry; as well as over 70 plays—many of which were debuted here in Louisville, and later produced by stock companies across the country.

Tom always claimed his sonnets represented his best work, but folks around the Jefferson Hall of Justice were probably most captivated by his riotous "Tales of The Hall" series of novellas, containing characters based upon real Louisville lawyers, in fictionalized settings.

In Fire Dancers of Bali, Egan writes about a fictional Louisville trial attorney, Oliver Wendell Hackett, who boasts that he would represent absolutely anyone who had the money to pay him, with no exceptions. His boast is put to the test when he is retained by Satan himself. First in the “Tales of The Hall” series, the book was published in 1998, and is now in its second printing.

 Topkapi Palace, Istanbul (WikiMedia Commons)

Second in the series, is By Love Repossessed, in which a divorced, work-alcoholic corporate attorney falls in love with and pursues a high school drop-out with facial piercings and black lipstick; until he loses all powers of concentration.

Next came Rumors of Justice, in which a well-respected courthouse attorney loses all credibility and respect when he tries to get the Ten Commandments back in the courtrooms. (He really doesn't want to do it, but he is haunted and harassed by the ghost of Thomas Jefferson to do so.)

Our personal favorite, of course, is Istanbul; a sinister whodunit about a group of Louisville lawyers who travel to the Dardanelles for a continuing legal education (CLE) seminar (a bit of a stretch, but scenes in Hagia Sophia and the Topkapi palace give the plot some oriental atmosphere). The protagonist of this thriller is none other than a one Thomas A. McAdam, III; the Doctor Jekyll to your Louisville City Hall Examiner’s Mister Hyde. It’s not everyone gets a book written about him, even if it is fiction.

Tom Eagan was a dear friend and the closest thing Louisville ever had to a Renaissance Man. He will be missed.

Tom is survived by his son, Christopher; his granddaughter, Ainsley (5); and four nieces and nephews. A memorial service will be held 5:30 p.m., Friday, at Highlands Funeral Home, 3331 Taylorsville Road, followed by funeral Mass at St. Louis Bertrand, 1104 S. 6th St., 10:00 a.m., Saturday.

Sign Tom’s guest book:  Legacy.com