Daily Archives: 19 February 11

Indulging my taste for mid-century fiction, I recently purchased a copy of Sloan Wilson’s 1963 novel, Georgie Winthrop. Like his (probably better-known) contemporary John Cheever, Wilson was at his best chronicling the trials and tribulations of a certain class of post-war suburbanite. Most widely known today as the author of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, which could be viewed as a 1950s precursor to Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, Wilson also penned A Summer Place, which was turned into a film under the same title in 1959, as well as a number of other novels and one work of autobiographical non-fiction. Sloan Wilson has been a particular favorite of mine since I first read The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit several years ago, and I’m slowly working my way through all of his novels — one every couple of years. Georgie Winthrop was his first book since 1960′s A Sense of Values, and I’m looking forward to reading it.

I always enjoy finding artifacts of the previous owner(s) of used books that I purchase, and I found a cute bookplate in this copy of Georgie Winthrop. As far as I can tell, Betty and Edmund Shimberg are both still alive and well, still married, and both are psychologists practicing together in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. If you ever stumble on this post: Hi!