Glenway Wescott Personally : A Biography

As a writer, Wescott (1901-1987) left behind a series of novels noted for their lyricism. As a literary figure, he also became a symbol of his times. In this biography, Rosco chronicles Wescott's long and colourful life, his early fame, later struggles to write and his world of artistic creation.

As a writer, Glenway Wescott (1901-1987) left behind a series of 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.