Most of the chapters are based on the trouble that his best friend, Luther Wesley Vinson (aka “Soup”) managed to get the boys wrapped up in, which was apparently an endless source of literary inspiration. Peck’s only-slightly-fictionalized memoir about growing up in depression-era Vermont, and all of the stories are told from his childhood perspective. As of 2005, he lived in Longwood, Florida with his wife.I’m not sure how my older brother ever heard about the “ SOUP” series of books by Robert Newton Peck, but when he passed them on to me I was hooked from the first page.

In 1993, Peck was diagnosed with oral cancer, but fortunately overcame the disease. The best man at the wedding, and the godfather to the children, was Fred Rogers of Mr. He married Dorothy Anne Houston and fathered two children: Anne and Christopher. A South Carolina appeals court upheld a $24,000 jury verdict against Peck for slander on the theory that when Peck cast an aspersion upon Wardlaw's chastity, his public remarks were slanderous per se. In 1984, Peck was sued by Mary Jo Wardlaw, an Erskine College student, for outrageous conduct causing severe emotional distress and slander, for comments he made during a convocation speech at the college (318 S.E.2d 284, S.C.App., 1984). To date, his credits include fifty-five novels, six nonfiction works, thirty-five songs, three television specials and over one hundred poems. Peck published his first novel, A Day No Pigs Would Die, which was a semi-autobiography of his childhood, in 1972 at the age of forty-four. He then entered Cornell Law School, but failed to complete his studies. After he returned to the United States, Peck entered Rollins College, graduating in 1953.

Peck served in World War II as a machine-gunner in the U.S. His only verified Vermont connection, which Peck hints as his real birthplace, comes from his father, who was born in Sunderland, Vermont. Though stated as his mother's birthplace, other sources indicate the actual location as Ticonderoga, New York, where his mother Lucille Peck and aunt Caroline Dornburgh lay in unmarked graves Peck, himself, may have also been born there. Various sources indicate his birthplace as Nashville, Tennessee.

Similarly, he states that he graduated from a high school in Texas, yet again refuses to identify the specific location.

Peck claims his birth date to have been February 17, 1928, but refuses to specify his birthplace. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately. This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources.

Soup by Robert Newton Peck