CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Jim Lynch (writer)

author

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ6196519 ↗
Source-derived summary

Jim Lynch (born 1961) is an American author of four novels. His work has been compared to authors including John Steinbeck,

Ken Kesey, Tom Robbins, and Richard Russo.

Lynch's first novel, The Highest Tide, became a bestseller in the United Kingdom after the coming-of-age story was featured on the Richard & Judy book club television show in England. It went on to receive the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award in 2006. His second novel, Border Songs, set along the rural western end of the Canada–United States border, won the Washington State Book Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the American Booksellers Association award for best fiction in 2009.

Truth Like the Sun, Lynch's third novel, (the title based on an Elvis Presley quote, "Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't going away.") was released in April 2012. Set in Seattle, during the 1962 World's Fair, a time when Presley and other celebrities, including Vice President Lyndon Johnson visited it as well as in 2001, the story involves the investigation of a city legend by an ambitious reporter. Critics have likened the novel to movies about American power and corruption, such as Chinatown, Citizen Kane, and All the President's Men. His most recent novel, Before the Wind, was released in April 2016.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Jim Lynch (writer)” as author. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1961, 2006, 2009, 2012—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1961-11-03. The account is most persuasive where Lynch, writer and author can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as author. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6196519. VIAF identifies the subject as 120612859. The Library of Congress control number is n2004152494. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 2006, 2009 and 2012.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Jim Lynch (writer)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Jim Lynch (writer) primary sources, Jim Lynch (writer) archive and Lynch research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Jim Lynch (writer)”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Jim Lynch (writer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.