Glenway Wescott (April 11, 1901 – February 22, 1987) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

poet, novelist and essayist. A figure of the American

expatriate An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...

literary community in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

during the 1920s, Wescott was openly

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

.Eric Haralson, ''Henry James and Queer Modernity'', Cambridge University Press, 2003, page 175 His relationship with longtime companion

Monroe Wheeler Monroe Wheeler (13 February, 1899 – 14 August, 1988) was an American publisher and museum coordinator whose relationship with the novelist and poet Glenway Wescott lasted from 1919 until Wescott's death in 1987. Biography Wheeler was born in Ev ...

lasted from 1919 until Wescott's death.

Early life

Wescott was born on a farm in

Kewaskum, Wisconsin Kewaskum is a village in Washington and Fond du Lac counties in Wisconsin, United States. The population was 4,004 at the 2010 census. All of this population resided in the Washington County portion of the village. The village is mostly surro ...

in 1901. His younger brother,

Lloyd Wescott Lloyd Bruce Wescott (November 21, 1907 – December 24, 1990) was an agriculturalist, civil servant, and philanthropist in New Jersey. Born and educated in Wisconsin, he moved to New York after college before settling in New Jersey where he ...

, was born in Wisconsin in 1907. He studied at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

, where he was a member of a literary circle including Elizabeth Madox Roberts,

Yvor Winters Arthur Yvor Winters (October 17, 1900 – January 25, 1968) was an American poet and literary critic. Life Winters was born in Chicago, Illinois and lived there until 1919 except for brief stays in Seattle and in Pasadena, where his grandparen ...

, and Janet Lewis, but left after contracting

Spanish flu The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case wa ...

. Wescott travelled to Santa Fe to recover from Spanish flu, where he wrote his first published poetry collection, titled ''The Bitterns''. Although, he began his writing career as a poet, he is best known for his short stories and novels, notably '' The Grandmothers'' (1927), which received the Harper Novel prize, and ''The Pilgrim Hawk'' (1940).

Career

Wescott lived in Germany (1921–22), and in France ( 1925–33), where he mixed with

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...

and other members of the American expatriate community. Wescott was the model for the character Robert Prentiss in Hemingway's ''

The Sun Also Rises ''The Sun Also Rises'' is a 1926 novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, his first, that portrays American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the b ...

''. After meeting Prentiss, Hemingway's narrator, Jake Barnes, confesses, "I just thought perhaps I was going to throw up." In the '' Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas'' (1933), Gertrude Stein wrote about him, "There was also Glenway Wescott but Glenway Wescott at no time interested Gertrude Stein. He has a certain syrup but it does not pour." Wescott and Wheeler returned to the United States and maintained an apartment in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

with photographer

George Platt Lynes George Platt Lynes (April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955) was an American fashion photography, fashion and advertising, commercial photographer who worked in the 1930s and 1940s. He produced photographs featuring many gay artists and writers from ...

, whom they had met in France in 1926. When his brother Lloyd moved to a dairy farm in Union Township, near Clinton in

Hunterdon County Hunterdon County is a county located in the western section of the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the county's population was 128,947, making it the state's 18th-most populous county,New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, in 1936, Wescott along with Wheeler and Lynes took over one of the farmhand houses and named it Stone-Blossom. Lynes ended his relationship with Wescott and Wheeler in 1943 to be with his studio assistant, George Tichenor. Nevertheless, Wescott was at Lynes' bedside when he died of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...

in December 1955. His novel, ''The Pilgrim Hawk: A Love Story'' (1940), was praised by the critics. ''Apartment in Athens'' (1945), the story of a Greek couple in Nazi-occupied

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

who must share their living quarters with a German officer, was a popular success. From then on he ceased to write fiction, although he published essays and edited the works of others. In her essay on ''The Pilgrim Hawk'', Ingrid Norton writes, "After...''Apartment in Athens'', Wescott lived until 1987 without writing another novel: journals (published posthumously as ''Continual Lessons'') and the occasional article, yes, but no more fiction. The Midwest-born author seems to slide into the

golden handcuffs Golden handcuffs, a phrase first recorded in 1976, refers to financial allurements and benefits that have the objective to encourage highly compensated employees to remain within a company or organization instead of moving from company to company ...

of expatriate decadence: supported by the heiress his brother married nowiki/>Barbara_Harrison_Wescott.html" ;"title="Barbara_Harrison_Wescott.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Barbara Harrison Wescott">nowiki/>Barbara Harrison Wescott">Barbara_Harrison_Wescott.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Barbara Harrison Wescott">nowiki/>Barbara Harrison Wescott surrounded by literate friends, given to social drinking and letter-writing."

Later life

In 1959, when his brother Lloyd acquired a farm near the village of Rosemont in Delaware Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, Wescott moved into a two-story stone house on the property, dubbed Haymeadows. In 1987, Wescott died of a stroke at his home in Rosemont and was buried in the small farmer's graveyard hidden behind a rock wall and trees at Haymeadows. Monroe Wheeler was buried alongside him following his death a year later."Glenway Wescott, 85, Novelist and Essayist"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', February 24, 1987. Accessed April 4, 2008.

Books

*''The Bitterns'' (1920) poems *''The Apple of the Eye'' (1924) novel *''Natives of Rock'' (1925) poems *''Like a Lover'' (1926) stories *'' The Grandmothers'' (1927) novel ublished as ''A Family Portrait'' in England*''Goodbye, Wisconsin'' (1928) stories *''The Babe's Bed'' (1930) short story ublished as a stand-alone chapbook*''Fear and Trembling'' (1932) essays *''A Calendar of Saints for Unbelievers'' (1932) nonfiction *''The Pilgrim Hawk'' (1940) novel *''Apartment in Athens'' (1945) novel *''Images of Truth'' (1962) essays *''Continual Lessons: Journals, 1937-55'' (posthumous, 1991) *''A Visit to Priapus'' (posthumous, 2013) stories

References

External links

* * *
Review
of Jerry Rosco's biography and overview of Wescott's work * ''A Visit to Priapus'', the only explicitly gay short story by Wescott (1938), has been reprinted with permission in the gay literary journal ''Ganymede'', #3 issue (April 2009) and in 2013 was included i
''A Visit to Priapus and Other Stories''
the additional contents of which are described as "drawn together from midcentury literary journals and magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, as well as from Wescott's papers."
The Loves of the Falcon

Edmund White Edmund Valentine White III (born 1940) is an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer and an essayist on literary and social topics. Since 1999 he has been a professor at Princeton University. France made him (and later ) de l'Ordr ...

essay on Wescott and a review of books by and about him, from ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...