Sloan Wilson


Sloan Wilson was an American writer who published works such as ''The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.''

Early life

Wilson was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, the grandson of U.S. Navy officer and Arctic explorer John Wilson Danenhower. Wilson graduated from Harvard University in 1942. He then 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.

Career

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 University of Buffalo, now called the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Wilson published 15 books, including the bestsellers The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and A Summer Place, both of which were adapted into feature films. 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 United States 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 1955-1956 White House Conference on Education.

Personal life

Wilson suffered from alcoholism throughout his adult life, and Alzheimer's disease toward the end. In addition to novels and magazine articles, he supported himself during his later years by writing commissioned works such as biographies and yacht histories. He was living in Colonial Beach, Virginia, at the time of his death.
Wilson was married twice, first to Elise Pickhardt in 1941. They had three children, including the evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson. He married again in 1962, to Betty Stephens. They had one daughter. In the 1970s Wilson and his wife and daughter lived at Dinner Key Marina in Coconut Grove, Florida on a cruiser, the Pretty Betty.

Novels

  • Voyage to Somewhere
  • The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
  • A Summer Place
  • A Sense of Values
  • Georgie Winthrop
  • Janus Island
  • All the Best People
  • Small Town
  • Ice Brothers
  • Greatest Crime
  • Pacific Interlude
  • ''The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit II''

    Autobiographies

  • Away from It All
  • ''What Shall We Wear to This Party?: The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Twenty Years Before & After''

    Short fiction

  • "The Best and Most Powerful Machines"
  • "The Octopus"
  • "The Wonderful Plans"
  • "Check for $90,000"
  • "Bearer of Bad Tidings"
  • "Housewarming"
  • "A Very Old Man"
  • "Drunk on the Train"
  • "The Reunion"
  • "Bygones"
  • "The Alarm Clock"
  • "The Powder Keg"
  • "The Black Mollies"
  • "A Sword for my Children"
  • "A Letter of Admonition"
  • "Citation"
  • "The Cook and the Book"
  • "The Disappearance"
  • "The News"
  • "The Regatta"
  • "A Friendship Sloop"
  • "Lollapalooza and the Rogers Rock Hotel"

    Poetry

  • The Soldiers who Sit
  • Cup and Lip

    Nonfiction

  • "Public Schools Are Better Than You Think"
  • "It's Time to Close Our Carnival"
  • "The American Way of Birth"
  • A Love Letter to the Big Ditch
  • "The Heirs of Captain Slocum: Alone At Sea"