Janus Island

by Sloan Wilson, Not Illustrated (Illustrator)

Ben Power is forty five, divorced, alone, broke, and the victim of a kind of menopausal mawkishness so many of Sloan Wilson's heroes have indulged.

Genres: Fiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Sloan Wilson (May 8, 1920 – May 25, 2003) was an American writer.
Born in Norwalk, Connecticut, Wilson graduated from Harvard University in 1942. He served in World War II as an officer of the United States Coast Guard, commanding a naval trawler for the Greenland Patrol and an army supply ship in the Pacific Ocean.
After the war, Wilson worked as a reporter for Time-Life. His first book, Voyage to Somewhere, was published in 1947 and was based on his wartime experiences. He also published stories in The New Yorker and worked as a professor at the State University of New York's University of Buffalo.
Wilson published 15 books, including the bestsellers The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955) and A Summer Place (1958), both of which were adapted into feature movies. A later novel, A Sense of Values, in which protagonist Nathan Bond is a disenchanted cartoonist involved with adultery and alcoholism, was not well received. In Georgie Winthrop, a 45-year-old college vice president begins a relationship with the 17-year-old daughter of his childhood love. The novel The Ice Brothers is loosely based on Wilson's experiences in Greenland while serving with the US Coast Guard. The memoir What Shall We Wear to This Party? recalls his experiences in the Coast Guard during World War II and the changes to his life after the bestseller Gray Flannel was published.

Wilson was an advocate for integrating, funding and improving public schools. He became Assistant Director of the National Citizens Commission for Public Schools as well as Assistant Director of the 1955-56 White House Conference on Education.

Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I've said about The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Sloan Wilson is a Great Writer; but he is not a genius every time. Janus Island, while entertaining enough, proves that point.

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wilson wrote many successful and best-selling novels, two of which (The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and A Summer Place) were adapted into films. Janus Island, published in 1967, has a film-like narrative propulsion and lots of dialogue and action. The story involves Ben Power's post-divorce search for love and his friend Nort, who is obsessed with finding deposits of Spanish gold on Janus Island. Ben finds love, but, not surprisingly, Nort finds no gold. A decent entertainment but only a ho-hum novel.

[Nenad · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

1st Read: June 4, 1998 - June 18, 1998

This story kept me interested, though it wasn't one which I would say had enthralled me!