a plane back to the United States. Fourteen years later he is arrested for desertion. Conversations with the Enemy was a 1984 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. In 1985, Groom moved back to Mobile, Alabama, where he began to work on the novel Forrest Gump. Years before, Groom's elderly father had told him about a mentally disabled boy he had known as a child. Groom began writing Forrest Gump the same day, and within six weeks finished the novel. Forrest Gump was published in 1986. Several years later, it was adapted by screenwriter Eric Roth as a 1994 film of the same name, starring Tom Hanks in the title role of Forrest Gump. The film received six Academy Awards and numerous others; its popularity propelled the novel to best-seller status, and it sold 1.7 million copies worldwide. Groom disputed accounting by Paramount Pictures related to profits from the film. He contended the company used Hollywood accounting to deflate profitability numbers; as a result, Groom received no payment, although he held a 3% profit share in it. In November 2011, Groom published his latest history, Kearny's March: The Epic Creation of the American West, 1846–1847. Groom describes how Brigadier General Stephen W. Kearny's quest for westward adventure coincided with the expansionist desires of U.S. President James K. Polk. The book opens in mid-summer 1846, in the period of the Texas Annexation, the Mexican–American War, and brewing issues related to the American Civil War fifteen years in the future. Groom weaves into Kearny's March mountain man Kit Carson, Brigham Young and his Mormon followers, and members of the Donner party. In 2016, Groom published El Paso, his first novel in nearly 20years. At the time of his death in 2020, Groom was waiting for publication of The Patriots, his biography of American leaders John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson. Personal life Groom was married three times, and was divorced twice. He had one daughter, and three stepchildren. Groom died from a suspected heart attack at his home in Fairhope on September 17, 2020, at age 77. Works Novels As Summers Die (1980), Forrest Gump (1986); Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, reprint 2012, Gone the Sun (1988); 1996, Gump and Co. (1995) Such a Pretty, Pretty Girl (1998) El Paso (2016) Nonfiction Conversations with the Enemy: the story of P.F.C. Robert Garwood (1982, with Duncan Spencer) Shrouds of Glory: From