Expat American literary young men colliding in Gertrude Stein's orbit in Paris, Hemingway took an immediate dislike to gay novelist Glenway Wescott for his artificial affectations [from Wisconsin, he acquired an English accent] and his "fake" fiction. In The Sun Also Rises he lampooned Wescott as Robert Prescott until Max Perkins made him change the overly obvious last name to Prentiss. Wescott's major novels, before he ceased writing them at 44, are The Grandmothers, based on his own family, Apartment in Athens [Kindle], about a Greek family forced to host a German officer, of which Susan Sontag said in The New Yorker it is “among the treasures of 20th-century American literature,” and
The Pilgrim Hawk [Kindle], which David Leavitt chose as a favorite of 2011. 
Late last year came his gay-inclusive stories, A Visit to Priapus
. One area in which Wescott trumped Hemingway: His relationship with MoMA curator Monroe Wheeler lasted 68 years, from 1919 to his death at 85 in 1987. After you read the novels, try Jerry Rosco's Glenway Wescott Personally: A Biography or get Continual Lessons: The Journals of Glenway Wescott, 1937-1955
and A Heaven of Words: Last Journals, 1956-1984.
Reader Daniel recommends the really wonderful When We Were Three: Travel Albums of George Platt Lynes, Monroe Wheeler and Glenway Wescott 1925-1935.
Camp out with some old-school gay humor. Arthur Wooten's novel of misadventures in middle-aged gay dating, On Picking Fruit
[Kindle
], inspired Edmund White to say, "If gallantry in our day is defined as facing adversity with screams of laughter, then this is the most gallant book I know of." Its sequel is Fruit Cocktail [Kindle
]. Three generations of Southern zany types converge in Birthday Pie [Kindle], and Leftovers
examines a 1950s divorced woman's zeal for Tupperware. Dizzy: A Fictional Memoir
goes backstage with Broadway royalty. Wooten's site says, "All of his books have been adapted to film, television and/or stage."
Thanks for showcasing Glenway Prescott. A fascinating life, and a far better writer than given credit for.
Posted by: John Mulholland | April 11, 2014 at 02:26 PM