James Gould Cozzens
| James Gould Cozzens | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 19, 1903 Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Died | August 9, 1978 (aged 74) Stuart, Florida, United States |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Genre | Realism |
| Notable works |
Guard of Honor By Love Possessed |
James Gould Cozzens (August 19, 1903 – August 9, 1978) was a Pulitzer-prize winning American novelist and short story writer.
He is often grouped today with his contemporaries John O'Hara and John P. Marquand, but his work is generally considered more challenging. Despite initial critical acclaim, he achieved popularity only gradually.
Cozzens was a critic of modernism, and of realism more leftist than his own, and he was quoted in a featured article in Time as saying (perhaps somewhat in jest), "I can't read ten pages of Steinbeck without throwing up."
Born in Chicago, Illinois, he grew up on Staten Island. His father, Henry William Cozzens Jr., who died when Cozzens was 17, was an affluent businessman and the grandson of a governor of Rhode Island, William C. Cozzens. His Canadian mother, Mary Bertha Wood, came from a family of Connecticut tories who left for Nova Scotia following the American Revolution. Cozzens grew up in the same privileged lifestyle that formed the background of his most acclaimed works.
An Episcopalian, Cozzens attended the Episcopal Kent School in Connecticut from 1916–22, and after graduation went to Harvard University for two years, where he published his first novel, Confusion, in 1924. A few months later, ill and in debt, he withdrew from school and moved to New Brunswick, where he wrote a second novel, Michael Scarlett. Neither book sold well or was widely read, and to sustain himself, Cozzens went to Cuba to teach children of American residents, and there began to write short stories and gather material, which eventually became Cock Pit (1928) and The Son of Perdition (1929). After a year he accompanied his mother to Europe, where he tutored a young polio victim in order to earn money.
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