Sloan Wilson

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Sloan Wilson (born May 8, 1920 in Norwalk , Connecticut , † May 25, 2003 in Colonial Beach , Virginia ) was an American writer. He was best known for his 1955 novel The Man in the Gray Flannel , the title of which has become a catchphrase in American usage.

Life

Wilson's father was a professor at New York University and his grandfather was a graduate of the United States Naval Academy . Wilson learned to sail in his youth . At the age of 18 he chartered a schooner and sailed from Massachusetts to Havana . In 1941 he married the Boston debutante Elise Pickhardt. After graduating from Harvard University in 1942, Wilson did his military service for three years in the United States Coast Guard Reserve , where he achieved the rank of lieutenant . He commanded a trawler in the Greenland Patrol in Greenland , an experience that flowed into his novel Ice Brothers (1979). He later was the captain of a supply ship in the Pacific War , which he processed in Voyage To Somewhere (1949) and Pacific Interlude (1982).

Wilson began to write already during World War II , initially mostly poetry, one of which was published in the New Yorker . The transition to civil life was difficult for him. He worked as a reporter for the Providence Journal in Rhode Island . His debut novel Voyage to Somewhere received no response. Wilson found a well-paid job as an assistant to Roy Larsen, the managing director of Time-Life , which however did not satisfy him. From 1949 to 1952 he worked for the National Citizens Commission for Public Schools , then until 1955 as an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo . He wrote for Parents magazine and the New York Herald Tribune before becoming a freelance writer in 1958.

The 1955 novel The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit became an instant hit. The story caught the spirit of the times, the title became a catchphrase for the generation of men after the Second World War, who sacrificed their individuality and family life to their workplace. Critics often emphasized the struggle with adaptation and conformity as a central theme in this, as in later works by Wilson . Wilson, on the other hand, referred to his autobiographical experiences, which are representative of many people with similar lives. The first edition was sold over 2 million times. In 1956, a film of the same name was made with Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones . Sloan Wilson made over $ 1 million on the novel, but lost the money in the years that followed.

The successor A Summer Place (1958) was also a bestseller and was filmed as The Summer Island with the young actors Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue . In 1961, after A Sense of Values ​​was published , Wilson's first marriage fell apart. At New York University , where he taught English, he met his second wife, Betty Stephens, one of his students. They married in Dublin in 1962 . The divorce and remarriage formed the autobiographical background of the sequel The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit II , which appeared in 1984, but could not repeat the success of its predecessor. The novel ends in a happy divorce, a rare motif in American literature that shows Wilson's fondness for happy endings , which he believes are typical of America.

Wilson, who struggled with alcoholism all his life, could not match the success of the man in the gray flannel with any of his other works . The autobiography What Shall We Wear to This Party? The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit 20 Years Before and After received yet more positive reviews. In 1980, Wilson was Distinguished Writer in Residence at Rollins College , Florida . In his later years he made his living through job biographies and yacht histories. It was not until the re-publication of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit in 2002 with a foreword by Jonathan Franzen that Wilson caught the attention of contemporary readers again.

Wilson and his second wife lived on a boat in Florida and the Bahamas for several years . 1999 settled in Colonial Beach , Virginia , where Wilson, although suffering from Alzheimer's disease , wrote into old age and on his 80th birthday the story Brooklyn Girl began about his wife. Two of his four children have also written books: daughter Lisa published a non-fiction book on learning disabilities, and son David Sloan Wilson is an evolutionary biologist .

Works

  • Voyage to Somewhere (1947)
  • The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955)
  • A Summer Place (1958)
    • The summer island . Translated by Paola Calvino. Krüger, Hamburg 1959.
  • A Sense of Values (1961)
    • At the table of life . Translated by Werner Peterich . Krüger, Hamburg 1962.
  • Georgie Winthrop (1963)
  • Janus Island (1967)
  • Away from It All (1969)
  • All the Best People (1971)
    • Like a wild dream . Translated by Helmut Degner . Scherz, Bern 1971.
    • also as: The top of society . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-499-15788-8 .
  • What Shall We Wear to This Party? The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Twenty Years Before & After (1976)
  • Small Town (1978)
  • Ice Brothers (1979)
    • The men of the "Arluk" . Translated by Hardo Wichmann. Scherz, Bern 1982, ISBN 3-502-10855-2 .
  • Greatest Crime (1980)
  • Pacific Interlude (1982)
  • The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit II (1984)

Film adaptations

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sloan Wilson in the Encyclopædia Britannica .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Peter Guttridge: Obituaries: Sloan Wilson . In: The Independent of June 5, 2003.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Eric Homberger: Obituary: Sloan Wilson . In: The Guardian, May 31, 2003.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Saxon: Sloan Wilson, of 'Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,' Dies at 83 . In: The New York Times, May 27, 2003.
personal data
SURNAME Wilson, Sloan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 8, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Norwalk , Connecticut
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 2003
Place of death Colonial Beach , Virginia