Glenway Wescott

Glenway Wescott is one of the noteworthy figures of mid-century American letters. His aim was to write a totally honest account of himself, his friends and relations, and his loves, in the tradition of the greatest confessional literature, and he succeeded.

Essays on the author's friends, Katherine Anne Porter and Thornton Wilder, and on Somerset Maugham, Colette, Isak Dinesen, and Thomas Mann.

Charm, wit, compassion, wisdom, literature, nature, sex, humor, politics, sorrow, love: these themes fill the late journal pages of enigmatic American writer Glenway Wescott. From humble beginnings on a poor Wisconsin farm, Wescott went on to study at the University of Chicago, narrowly survive the Spanish flu pandemic, and eventually emerge as an influential poet and novelist. A major figure in the American literary expatriate community in Paris during the 1920s and a prominent American novelist in the years leading up to World War II, he spent a decade living abroad before relocating permanently to New York and New Jersey with his partner, Museum of Modern Art publications director and curator Monroe Wheeler. Together they mixed with such intellectual and creative greats as Jean Cocteau, Colette, George Platt Lynes, Paul Cadmus, Somerset Maugham, Christopher Isherwood, Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, Truman Capote, Joseph Campbell, and scores of other luminaries. During the second half of his life, Wescott wrote nonfiction essays and worked for the Academy Institute of Arts and Letters, all the while keeping journals in which he recorded the experiences that fostered his love of life, literature, the arts, and humanity. A Heaven of Words looks back on Wescott's entire fascinating life and reveals the riveting narrative of his last decades.

One afternoon in a French village in the 1920s, Alwyn Tower is visiting another American friend, Alexandra Henry. The Cullens, an Irish couple, accompanied by their chauffeur and a trained bird, Lucy, stop by. Alexandra's servants, Jean and Eva, complete this peaceful scene. But as the afternoon wears on, Lucy upsets this cozy assemblage and therein lies a tale of love and fidelity.