Weldon Kees and the Midcentury Generation: Letters, 1935-1955Before he vanished in the fog of San Francisco, Weldon Kees (1914?55) was a poet, storyteller, critic, painter, musician, and filmmaker. What remains is a body of work and a large collection of letters that shed light on Kees?s complex personality. Robert E. Knoll traces the odyssey of a Nebraska boy who made his way in a fiercely competitive national scene, befriending the movers and shakers of the art worlds on both coasts. Kees?s letters?satirical, witty, poetic, gossipy, intensely individual?provide the feel of lives being lived, of a career going forth, and finally, of the darkness that engulfed him when, in Knoll's phrase, he was "ten minutes from triumph." |
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abstract American Ann and Weldon Ann Kees Anton Myrer artists became Bennett Martin Public born California called College Conrad Aiken critic Dear Maurice Denver Dwight Macdonald edited editor Edmund Wilson essays fiction film friends Fritz Bultman Gallery Hans Hofmann Helm Heritage Room Hofmann Hollywood James Janet Richards jazz Jelly Roll Morton John Kees Judith Rothschild Jurgen Ruesch Kees wrote Kees's Keeses later Laughlin letters Lincoln literary lived look MacAgy Malcolm Cowley Martin Public Library Mary Maurice Johnson Michael Grieg movie night Norris Getty novel novelist painters painting Partisan Review Photograph courtesy piece play poems poet poetry Prairie Schooner Provincetown published Rahv Robert Ruesch San Francisco seemed short stories Street summer talk Tate things thought tion Tony volume week Weldon Kees Weldon wrote wife William Wimberly writing written wrote to Norris Yaddo York City Yorker