Uncle Mame
The Life of Patrick Dennis
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3.8 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Edward Everett Tanner III, under his pseudonyms of Patrick Dennis and Virginia Rowans, was the author of sixteen novels - most of them bestsellers - including the classics Little Me and Genius. But, despite the success of his other works, he is by best known and best remembered for his most indelible creation - Auntie Mame.
Born and raised in the affluent suburbs of Chicago, Tanner moved to New York City after World War II and embarked upon a writing career. His first two books were published with a whimper - attracting few reviews and fewer sales - and his third book was rejected by nineteen publishers before being accepted at a relatively small house. But Auntie Mame became a phenomena spending two years on the bestseller lists, adapting into a successful play, movie, and later a musical. As a result of this and later successes, Tanner made millions and became the toast of a certain bohemian segment of Manhattan arts society. He also spent every cent he ever made. Torn between his wife and family and his own awakening realization of his homosexuality, he separated from his wife and moved to Mexico. By the early 70's, his writing career over, he embarked upon a new career - as a butler to some of the wealthiest families in America.
Based on extensive interviews with co-workers, friends, and relatives, Uncle Mame is a revealing, appealing portrait of a great American character. Easily the counterpart of such revered wits as P. G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh, Dennis is not only the man who brought camp to the American mainstream but he also lived a life as wild, poignant, madcap, and intriguing as any of his own books.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
If Dennis is remembered at all today, it is as the author of Auntie Mame. But in the late 1950s and early '60s, Edward Everett Tanner III (who published under the pseudonyms Patrick Dennis and Virginia Rowans) was a phenomenally popular novelist. Myers's literate, impeccably researched and entertaining biography resurrects this outrageous author of social satires who almost singlehandedly introduced "camp" into mainstream American culture. In 1955, Tanner wrote several short stories about an irreverent, fabulous woman that were turned down by 19 publishers until an editor at Vanguard Press suggested he turn them into a novel. Auntie Mame made Tanner a millionaire (during the novel's 112-week stint on the New York Times bestseller list, he became the first author to have three books on the Times list at once, when he published Guestward Ho! and The Loving Couple in 1956). Tanner was at his career peak in late 1962, when his Little Me opened on Broadway. But a week after he was profiled in Life, he attempted suicide and was committed to a mental hospital for eight months. After years of leading a double life as a gay man while married with two kids, he had fallen in love with another man and decided he had to leave his family. By the early '70s, his novels were out of fashion and he had spent (or drunk) most of the money he had made. He later reentered the milieu he'd previously enjoyed by becoming a butler to the rich and famous (including McDonald's founder Ray Kroc). The name Patrick Dennis has faded from most readers' memories, but that of Auntie Mame lives on (1998's But Darling, I'm Your Auntie Mame tracked her incarnations from book to stage to screen). So the reference to Mame in the title, along with the fetching "Playbill"-style book jacket, should compensate for Dennis's current obscurity, and help draw theater fans to this well-told tale.
