Sloan Wilson(1920-2003)
- Writer
While a student at Harvard College, Wilson engaged in many sailing
adventures aboard his father's yacht whith the assistance of his
college friends. In 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Wilson
received a reserve commission in the U.S. Coast Guard, serving on the
Greenland Patrols as well as in the Pacific Theater of Operations.
Shortly after the war his first book, "Voyage to Somewhere" was
published to tepid critical reviews and public reaction. Wilson took a
postion as a writer at Time magazine and soon became an organizer of
that publication's publisher's committee on public education. With
encouragement from Dick Simon, of Simon and Shuster, Sloan wrote the
classic "Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" which was to beocme an anthem
during the 1950s. His next work "A Summer Place" although not as
critically acclaimed, was a national best-seller also. Both books were
made into very successful motion pictures. After a divorce from his
wife of over twenty years, and by all accounts, a blissful marriage to
a woman fourteen years his junior, Wilson continued to write fiction
based mostly on his life experiences. In retrospect, it is a shame that
much of his later work was not as critically appraised and read, as
much of it is classic 'everyman' told in a fine, direct manner. His
autobiography "What to Wear to the Party" is both candid and humorous.
"Ice Brothers" is arguably the best fiction ever written about the
Coast Guard, perhaps one of the best examples of Twentieth Century
fiction ever written.
