The Gallery (New York Review Books Classics)
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
"The first book of real magnitude to come out of the last war." —John Dos Passos
John Horne Burns brought The Gallery back from World War II, and on publication in 1947 it became a critically-acclaimed bestseller. However, Burns's early death at the age of 36 led to the subsequent neglect of this searching book, which captures the shock the war dealt to the preconceptions and ideals of the victorious Americans.
Set in occupied Naples in 1944, The Gallery takes its name from the Galleria Umberto, a bombed-out arcade where everybody in town comes together in pursuit of food, drink, sex, money, and oblivion. A daring and enduring novel—one of the first to look directly at gay life in the military—The Gallery poignantly conveys the mixed feelings of the men and women who fought the war that made America a superpower.
About the Author
JOHN HORNE BURNS (1916-1953) was born in Andover, Massachusetts, the son of a wealthy Irish Catholic lawyer. He graduated from Harvard and then taught English at a boys' boarding school before being drafted in 1942. Employed as a censor of prisoners' mail, Burns spent most of World War II in northern Africa and Italy; his experiences in Naples -- including those within the gay community of American servicemen and local Italians -- became the raw material for his first novel, The Gallery, published in 1947 to considerable critical acclaim. Disaffected with American culture, Burns soon moved to Italy. He published two further novels, Lucifer with a Book (a satire drawing on his experience as a boarding-school teacher, published in 1949) and A Cry of Children (1952), while supporting himself as a travel writer, but both books received scathing reviews. While working on a fourth novel, Burns died of a cerebral hemorrhage, probably caused by alcoholism.
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