Glenway Wescott Personally: A Biography [Hardcover]

Jerry Rosco (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0299177300 | ISBN-13: 978-0299177300 | Publication Date: April 18, 2002 | Edition: 1

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.

 

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

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 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Wescott (1901-87), born a Wisconsin farm boy but destined to live a cosmopolitan literary life, loved language so much he not only devoted himself to reading and writing but also to speaking well, and he's remembered as much for being a splendid conversationalist and lecturer as he is for his few indelible novels, masterful essays, and celebrated journals. Wescott is also cherished for his candor about his homosexuality in overtly homophobic times. Rosco, who knew Wescott, answers the big question about his subject's infamous writer's block by explaining that Wescott never stopped writing; he just lost the feel for fiction and had a curious aversion to being published. "Happiness was his real distraction," Rosco writes, detailing Wescott's complex and sustained relationship with curator Monroe Wheeler, a string of complementary involvements, friendships with a veritable writers' who's who, and, in the book's most dramatic revelations, his close association with sex researcher Alfred Kinsey. Fluently anecdotal and analytical, Rosco's engrossing biography of this seminal man of letters neatly fills a gap in literary and gay history. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 324 pages
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press; 1 edition (April 18, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0299177300
• ISBN-13: 978-0299177300
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,682,301 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Take Glenway to the Beach, June 20, 2002

By 

Kevin Bentley (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Glenway Wescott Personally: A Biography (Hardcover)

Don't be frightened by the university press imprint: this solid biography isn't a bit stodgy--it's compulsively readable and full of great celebrity and sexual dish. Readers of Continual Lessons, the Wescott diaries Rosco co-edited, will be delighted at the opportunity to find out more about the life and experiences of this important gay figure. Fans of George Platt Lynes's male nudes will be interested to find out more about the photographer's complicated life and some of the men who appeared in his photos. Those who've never heard of Wescott are in for a treat. Glenway Wescott led a fascinating life: he was a beautiful boy wonder in 20s Paris, and later divided his time between literary and gay Manhattan and the idyllic country estate of his wealthy sister-in-law. He and lover Monroe Wheeler had a relationship that spanned seven decades; he shared his lover for years with Lynes; he had lots of lovers on the side; and he had a long involvement with the Kinsey Institute, including having sex on camera for the archives. He also had a famous case of writer's block, but came back stunningly twice: once with a popular bestseller, once with a gem of a novella, The Pilgrim Hawk (rediscovered regularly, most recently by Susan Sontag in The New Yorker). Wescott was a famous raconteur, and this entertaining book includes great memories and anecdotes in his own words--Don't miss the story of how Edmund Wilson dropped a shrimp in Edith Sitwell's hair-do at a cocktail party (p. 155).

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Literature Lover's Picnic, April 11, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Glenway Wescott Personally: A Biography (Hardcover)

Anyone infatuated as an undergraduate or an adult with Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald and the other heavyweights of the literary and artistic circles of the first half of the 20th century will frolic through Wescott's biography with glee. It's like peeking through a keyhole into the private lives of E.M. Forster, Christopher Isherwood, Marianne Moore, Jean Cocteau and others through the filter of Wescott's own unusual life and literary struggles. More importantly, it gives access to Wescott -- a masterful writer who has become a best-kept secret and deserves to be reinstated in the context of his talent and his time. The post-WWII Wescott (who didn't write for publication) is revealed here publicly for the first and, perhaps only, time. A very interesting biography that spans some of the most important decades in American literature.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Finally I know something about Glenway Wescott!, July 21, 2011

By 

northkona (Kailua-Kona, HI United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Glenway Wescott Personally: A Biography (Paperback)

I bought this book because I kept seeing Wescott's name in other things I've been reading, and I realized I had no idea who he was or what he wrote.

While the author is intent on placing Wescott in the pantheon of well-known gay writers and artists, I didn't really care about that except as an incidental point. The large number of people Wescott knew, especially in France in the 1920's, was great reading for me. It's always fascinating to see the interconnectedness of people from certain decades, whether it's writing, painting, ballet, or music. Reading this book showed me the crowd of personalities I already was familiar with from the viewpoint of Wescot's life. In fact, it might not be such a good book for somebody who doesn't already know at least something about Paris in the 1920's, the Sitwells in England, or any number of Westcott's literary contemporaries.

I liked the author's tone and style. This is a well-written, conversational kind of book, not a weighty academic tome. Pretty enjoyable, and out of the ordinary, too.