Glenway Wescott Personally: A Biography

by Jerry Rosco

Overview

As a writer, Glenway Wescott (1901–1987) left behind several novels, including The Grandmothers and The Pilgrim Hawk, noted for their remarkable lyricism. As a literary figure, Wescott also became a symbol of his times. Born on a Wisconsin farm in 1901, he associated as a young writer with Hemingway, Stein, and Fitzgerald in 1920s Paris and subsequently was a central figure in New York’s artistic and gay communities. Though he couldn’t finish a novel after the age of forty-five, he was just as famous as an arts impresario, as a diarist, and for the company he kept: W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Marianne Moore, Somerset Maugham, E. M. Forster, Joseph Campbell, and scores of other luminaries.
     In Glenway Wescott Personally, Jerry Rosco chronicles Wescott’s long and colorful life, his early fame and later struggles to write, the uniquely privileged and sometimes tortured world of artistic creation. Rosco sensitively and insightfully reveals Wescott’s private life, his long relationship with Museum of Modern Art curator Monroe Wheeler, his work with sex researcher Alfred Kinsey that led to breakthrough findings on homosexuality, and his kinship with such influential artists as Jean Cocteau, George Platt-Lynes, and Paul Cadmus.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299177331
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	04/22/2002
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jerry Rosco is a writer and editor and the coeditor of Continual Lessons: The Journals of Glenway Wescott 1937–1955. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Wisconsin Farm Boy to Midwest Prodigy 2. The Next Step: New York and Europe 3. The Expatriate Twenties 4. Paris and a New Family 5. Lost in America: The Thirties 6. The Little Masterpiece and Willie Maugham 7. The Bestseller 8. Dr. Kinsey and the Institute for Sex Research 9. Inside the Circle: Farewell to George 10. Beyond Fiction: The Valley Submerged 11. The Great Divide and Images of Truth 12. “Quail and Strawberries” 13. Golden Leaves and the Birthday Book Epilogue: Other Voices and Continual Lessons Notes Index

Editorial Reviews

The life of Glenway Wescott (1901-87) spanned an interesting range of eras, from 1920s Paris, where he was acquainted with Hemingway (who despised him for his homosexuality), Fitzgerald, and Stein; through the world wars; to 1950s and 1960s New York, where a sexual revolution was taking place. There he found himself in the middle of a remarkable group of gay artists, including Christopher Isherwood, W.H. Auden, and E.M. Forster. Though Wescott is best known in modern American literature courses for the lyric 1927 novel The Grandmothers and the novella The Pilgrim Hawk, Rosco, who coedited a volume of Wescott's journals (Continental Lessons), focuses on the way this Wisconsin farm boy came to terms with his sexuality in a world still governed by a strict Victorian code of conduct. Although he learned early to be a master storyteller largely from the example of his friend W. Somerset Maugham he was unable to complete a novel after the age of 45. His energy was channeled into other interests, among them Museum of Modern Art curator Monroe Wheeler, with whom he fashioned a lifelong and stabilizing relationship, and Alfred E. Kinsey, in whose work on American sexuality he became immersed in the 1950s. More than a biography of an unjustly ignored American writer, Rosco's work portrays a fascinating panorama of the evolution of America's gay artistic community. Recommended for libraries with holdings in gay studies. Charles C. Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, MO Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Wisconsin-born Wescott (1901-87) made his way to Paris, where he became one of the major expatriate writers of the 1920s. Rosco draws on the writer's journals, which he recently co- edited, and on many personal interviews with him as well as on conventional resources for the biography. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

“[Rosco] sets forth clearly the public triumphs and private sufferings experienced during this long and interesting life. A biography of a ‘minor’ writer such as Wescott is always a labor of love and readers can only be grateful to Rosco for his curiosity and eloquence.”—Edmund White, The New York Review of Books

“More than a biography of an unjustly ignored American writer, Rosco’s work portrays a fascinating panorama of the evolution of America’s gay artistic community.”—Library Journal

"It is a distinct treat to recall my meetings with and listening in awe to Glenway Wescott, noted novelist, essayist, pundit, and bon vivant."—Liz Smith, syndicated columnist

“Wescott’s life and career are important to American literature and to the history of changing sexual mores in America. [This book] should take its place alongside Carlos Baker’s Ernest Hemingway, Mark Schorer’s Sinclair Lewis, and Philip Herring’s Djuna [Barnes] as the definitive treatment.”—Sargent Bush, Jr., author of The Writings of Thomas Hooker: Spiritual Adventure in Two Worlds

From the Publisher