About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherSTATE University of New York Press

ISBN-101438450893

ISBN-139781438450896

eBay Product ID (ePID)175259153

Product Key Features

Book TitleCasual Affairs : the Life and Fiction of Sally Benson

Number of Pages468 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicWomen, Women Authors, Literary, American / General

Publication Year2014

IllustratorYes

GenreLiterary Criticism, Biography & Autobiography

AuthorMaryellen V. Keefe

Book SeriesExcelsior Editions Ser.

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height1 in

Item Weight27.3 Oz

Item Length9 in

Item Width6 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN2013-025961

ReviewseoeImpeccably researched and highly entertaining, this long-awaited biography of Sally Benson will find an important place in the history of American theater, film, and belles lettres .e e" Donald Spoto, biographer of Alfred Hitchcock, Tennessee Williams, Laurence Olivier, and others eoeFinally a biographer capable of bringing the brilliant and outrageous Sally Benson to life! And what a life it was for a woman, who began a long career writing for the New Yorker in 1929 and Hollywood in the forties. Keefee(tm)s vivid account, which draws on family papers as it traces Bensone(tm)s personal and professional ups and downs, is also the story of a generation of young women eager to balance work and family. Readers who know Benson primarily from the film Meet Me in St. Louis will come to know her as a stylist every bit as talented as Dorothy Parker and with the same wonderful flair.e e" Susan Goodman, author of Republic of Words: The Atlantic Monthly and Its Writers, 1857e"1925, "Impeccably researched and highly entertaining, this long-awaited biography of Sally Benson will find an important place in the history of American theater, film, and belles lettres ." -- Donald Spoto, biographer of Alfred Hitchcock, Tennessee Williams, Laurence Olivier, and others "Finally a biographer capable of bringing the brilliant and outrageous Sally Benson to life! And what a life it was for a woman, who began a long career writing for the New Yorker in 1929 and Hollywood in the forties. Keefe's vivid account, which draws on family papers as it traces Benson's personal and professional ups and downs, is also the story of a generation of young women eager to balance work and family. Readers who know Benson primarily from the film Meet Me in St. Louis will come to know her as a stylist every bit as talented as Dorothy Parker and with the same wonderful flair." -- Susan Goodman, author of Republic of Words: The Atlantic Monthly and Its Writers, 1857-1925

Dewey Edition23

Grade FromCollege Graduate Student

Dewey Decimal813/.52 B

Table Of ContentIllustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Part I 1. The Writer's Origins: St. Louis, Missouri--The Smith Family Album--1909 2. Manhattan Daze: 1909-1912 3. Summer of Discontent: 1912 4. Houston: 1912-1913 5. Rising Spirits: Home Again--1913-1915 6. A World at War: Arms and the Men--Prelude to a Marriage--1915-1918 7. Wedding Bells: 1919-1922 8. Second Honeymoon: 1922 9. Back to Reality: 1922-1926 Part II 10. A Wider World Beckons: The First Casual Affair--1927 11. Climbing the Career Ladder: Benson at The New Yorker --1928-1929 12. Public Success and Private Sorrow: 1930-1931 13. The Writer Makes Strides: 1932-1933 14. Refining Her Vision: 1933-1934 15. Perfecting Her Craft: 1934-1935 16. Affairs, Financial and Other: 1936 17. Taking Charge and Branching Out: 1937 18. Becoming an Entrepreneur: 1938 19. A World at War, Turmoil at Home: 1939-1940 20. Behind the Scene: 1940 21. Affairs, Family and Other: 1941 Part III 22. Becoming a Celebrity: 1942 23. The War Escalates at Home and Abroad: 1942 24. The World at War, Babe and Ham: 1943 25. Meet Me in St. Louis --the Fiction, the Sources--a Look Back: 1941-1942 26. The Making of Meet Me in St. Louis : 1943-1944 27. Hollywood, Pinewood, Broadway, and Beyond: 1947-1957 Epilogue Appendix A. Genealogical Guide Appendix B. The Smiths: A Family History Notes Bibliography Index

SynopsisFollows the life and career of Sally Benson, acclaimed writer of New Yorker fiction and Hollywood screenplays. In Casual Affairs , Maryellen V. Keefe vividly follows the life and career of Sally Benson, the New Yorker writer remembered by generations of moviegoers for Meet Me in St. Louis , the film that brought her family to life. Keefe traces Benson's life from her childhood in St. Louis to marriage and motherhood to her award-winning fiction career and her success as a Hollywood screenwriter. Through the Jazz Age and into the 1930s and '40s, Benson negotiated the transition from domesticity to the marketplace, becoming a full-fledged career woman while juggling her responsibilities as a wife and mother and indulging in several "quiet little affairs." She succeeded early in a profession dominated by men, forging her way in a largely male world and winning the support and friendship of colleagues and editors. Benson established herself as a writer known for brutally honest portraits of middle-class women much like herself., In Casual Affairs , Maryellen V. Keefe vividly follows the life and career of Sally Benson, the New Yorker writer remembered by generations of moviegoers for Meet Me in St. Louis , the film that brought her family to life. Keefe traces Benson's life from her childhood in St. Louis to marriage and motherhood to her award-winning fiction career and her success as a Hollywood screenwriter. Through the Jazz Age and into the 1930s and '40s, Benson negotiated the transition from domesticity to the marketplace, becoming a full-fledged career woman while juggling her responsibilities as a wife and mother and indulging in several "quiet little affairs." She succeeded early in a profession dominated by men, forging her way in a largely male world and winning the support and friendship of colleagues and editors. Benson established herself as a writer known for brutally honest portraits of middle-class women much like herself., Follows the life and career of Sally Benson, acclaimed writer of New Yorker fiction and Hollywood screenplays.

LC Classification NumberPS3503.E5625Z46 2014