Who are some famous American authors who grew up in financial privilege or generational wealth and went on to write great works? Bonus points if they suffered from family dysfunction and tragedy and still went on to write great books.
by spirited_unicorn_
12 Comments
My first thought was Anne sexton, the poet, because all her photographs show an F Scott Fitzgerald like lifestyle. Daughter of wool merchant and socialite. Pulitzer 1967 for live and let die.
Edith Wharton – not sure about family dynamics or tragedies, but she was of the NY upperclass in the gilded age and she certainly wrote all about it!
Bret Easton Ellis
Henry James
I feel like Anderson Cooper would fit this category (his mom was Gloria Vanderbilt). I enjoyed his most recent books Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty and Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune.
Edith Wharton- She’s also one of our greatest writers.
Louis Auchincloss. Or his cousin, Gore Vidal.
Rick Moody
>Moody was born in New York City to banker and investment strategist[1] Hiram Frederick Moody, Jr., and Margaret Maureen, daughter of Francis Marion Flynn, president and publisher of The New York News. The Moody family were resident in Maine for generations from around 1680;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Moody
John Irving
Edith Wharton was an excellent answer, but let’s not forget F. Scott Fitzgerald: Princeton wunderkind and chronicler of high society and human fallibility….
John Cheever, Henry Adams, Henry James…
Gore Vidal