Continual Lessons: The Journals of Glenway Wescott, 1937-1955

by Glenway Wescott

Written in the tell-all spirit of Rousseau, and with considerable literary flair, these journals by one of America's most notable modern writers offer a sprightly melange of daily events; sophisticated judgments of literature, painting and classical music; telling portraits of a wealth of fellow writers including Maugham, Katherine Anne Porter, Forster, Auden and Janet Flanner ("dear little old cold volcano"); and a goodly sprinkling of bons mots, e.g., "The thought of an artist has to be running water." Wescott (1901-1987) found fame early, with such works as his novella The Pilgrim Hawk (1940) and the bestselling Apartment in Athens (1945); thereafter, as though he enjoyed life too much, most of his major novel projects remained at the starting stage. A man of intense homoerotic sensibility, his hallmarks as a writer were incisiveness and honesty. Rosco completed this book after the death of Phelps. Both had been friends of Wescott. Author of the minor classic The Grandmothers (1927) and the later wartime bestseller Apartment in Athens , Wisconsin-born Wescott, a self-proclaimed perfectionist, opted for a career as impresario of the arts. In 1937, he settled with his lovers Monroe Wheeler and George Platt Lynes in rural New Jersey. Widely traveled and extraordinarily well read, he recorded his thoughts and activities in these journals, whose frankness made them unpublishable until now. Unless bored by Wescott's daily agonizing over a host of homosexual relationships, readers will find here some exquisite insights into subjects ranging from the Kinsey studies to Frost to Djuna Barnes to the antics of resident squirrels.

426 pages, Hardcover

First published January 23, 1991

About the author

Glenway Wescott grew up in Wisconsin and briefly attended the University of Chicago where he met in 1919 his longtime partner Monroe Wheeler.

In 1925 he and Wheeler moved to France, where they mingled with Gertrude Stein and other American expatriates, notably Ernest Hemingway, who created an unflattering portrait of Wescott in the character of Robert Prentiss in The Sun Also Rises.

Eventually, Wescott and Wheeler returned to America and lived in New York City, and later on a large farm in Rosemont, New Jersey owned by his brother, the philanthropist Lloyd Wescott, along with other family members.

Wescott's early fiction, the novels The Apple of the Eye (1924) and the Harper Prize winning The Grandmothers (1927) and the story collection Goodbye, Wisconsin (1928) were set in his native Midwest.

Later work included essays on political, literary, and spiritual subjects, as well as the novels The Pilgrim Hawk (1940), which shared a narrator in Alwyn Towers with The Grandmothers, and Apartment in Athens (1945). Wescott's journals, recording his many literary and artistic friendships, offering an intimate view of his life as a gay man, were published posthumously under the title Continual Lessons.

Reviews

[Lee Paris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Westcott is best known as the author of The Pilgrim Hawk and as the longtime companion of Monroe Wheeler, the respected museum administrator. Both lived long lives, and as gay men in America they witnessed the progress of attitudes towards homosexuality from crime and aberration through a mental illness amenable to treatment to liberation and candor. The relatively short period of time covered by these journals isn't sufficient to suggest this progress. In general, Westcott was self accepting (he even participated in Dr. Kinsey's study on male sexuality), but even he had to contend with his sister-in-law's championing of psychoanalysis as a potential cure for his condition. The journals (with the occasional letter) encompass the usual ambit of personal issues: family and finances, reflections on the craft of writing, gossip, and travel all within a circle of accomplished friends including Thornton Wilder, Katherine Anne Porter, Marianne Moore, George Platt Lynes, Christopher Isherwood, E.M. Forster, W.S. Maugham.

[Charles Stephen]

I can put this journal aside, now that I've read Jerry Rosco's excellent biography, "Glenway Wescott Personally." It answered all my questions about Wescott's life and career.