"We once had a shouting match on the phone over whether Norman Mailer or Saul Bellow was the better writer and deserved to be at the top of a pyramid we were putting together ranking nearly all the major writers in America."
He was born Lawrence Rust Hills on Nov. 9, 1924, in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he grew up.
After attending the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y., he served in the merchant marine during World War II. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1948 at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., and a master's in 1949.
Hills was the author of three books of personal essays in the '70s: "How to do things right: The revelations of a fussy man," "How to retire at forty-one: Or, dropping out of the rat race without going down the drain," and "How to be good: Or, the somewhat tricky business of attaining moral virtue in a society that's not just corrupt but corrupting, without being completely out-of-it."
He also wrote "Writing in general and the short story in particular," a 1977 book that is used in college creative writing classes and is still in print.
In addition to his wife, the twice-divorced Hills is survived by a daughter, Caitlin Hills; and a grandson.
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dennis.mclellan@latimes.com
