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Tess Slesinger

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Tess Slesinger
Born(1905-07-16)July 16, 1905
New York City,New York
DiedFebruary 21, 1945(1945-02-21)(aged 39)
Los Angeles,California, U.S.[1]
OccupationWriter, Screenwriter
NationalityAmerican

Theresa "Tess" Slesinger(July 16, 1905 – February 21, 1945) was an American writer andscreenwriterand a member of the New York intellectual scene.

Life and career

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She was born asTheresa SlesingerinNew York City,as the fourth child of Anthony Slesinger, a Hungarian-born dress manufacturer, and Augusta (néeSinger) Slesinger, a welfare worker who later (after 1931) became a prominent psychoanalyst.[2][3]Her family wasJewish.[4]She was the younger sister of three brothers, includingStephen Slesinger,later the creator ofRed Ryder.She was educated atEthical Culture Fieldston Schoolfrom September 1912 until June 1922,Swarthmore Collegeand theColumbia UniversitySchool of Journalism inNew York.[5][6]

In December 1932,Storymagazine published her short story "Missis Flinders", which was based on Slesinger's own experience of having an abortion, and may have been the first short story to appear in a large-circulation periodical to address the theme explicitly. Encouraged to expand the story, Slesinger incorporated it as the final chapter of her only novel,The Unpossessed(1934).[7]

The novel also satirizes the New York left-wing milieu in which she then lived. A modern edition describes it as "a cutting comedy about hard times, bad jobs, lousy marriages, little magazines, high principles, and the morning after" with "a cast of litterateurs, layabouts, lotharios, academic activists, and fur-clad patrons of protest and the arts." She helped to establish theScreen Writers Guild[5][8]in 1933.

Her first husband wasHerbert Solow,who was a staff writer on theMenorah Journal.[4]After marrying her second husband, screenwriterFrank Davis,she moved to California in 1935; with Davis she had two children.[4]Slesinger was responsible for the screenplays, among others, ofThe Good Earth(1937) and, at the end of her life, she adaptedA Tree Grows in Brooklyn(1946) with Davis, which won them an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay.[5][9][10]

During the era of thePopular Front,Slesinger was a supporter of theAmerican Communist Party.Her name was among those included on the letter denouncing theDewey Commission's investigation of theMoscow Trials,and she also endorsed the CP-initiated call for the Third American Writers' Congress in 1939. However, like many other leftist intellectuals of the time, Slesinger grew disillusioned with the Soviet Union in the wake of theHitler-Stalin Pactof 1939.[7]Maxim Lieberserved as her literary agent, 1933–1937, and in 1941.

Death

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Tess Slesinger died from cancer at the age of 39.[11]The children from her second marriage arePeter Davis,who is the writer, filmmaker and director of the Academy Award-winning documentaryHearts and Minds(1974), and Jane Davis, a wellness and mind-body specialist.[12]

Legacy

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InJames T. Farrell's novelSam Holman(1983), there are thinly-veiled fictional portraits of many prominent New York intellectuals; the character of "Frances Dunsky" is reportedly based on Slesinger.[13]

Works

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Books
  • The Unpossessed(Simon & Schuster, 1934) novel, reprinted 1984, 1993, 2012
  • Time: the Present(Simon and Schuster, 1935) short story collection
  • On Being Told That Her Second Husband Has Taken His First Lover and Other StoriesISBN9780812901764(Quadrangle Books, 1971, reprinted 1975, 1990), a reprint ofTime: the Presentwith one additional story[14]
Screenplays

References

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  1. ^"Tess Slesinger: Author of 'Unpossessed', Writer of Short Stories, Film Scripts".The New York Times.February 22, 1945. p. 25.
  2. ^"Mrs. A. Slesinger, Psychoanalyst, 79".The New York Times.Jan 7, 1952. p. 19.
  3. ^Sharistanian, Janet (1984)."Afterword".The Unpossessed.The Feminist Press. p. 359.ISBN9780935312218.
  4. ^abcHardwick, Elizabeth (September 28, 2002)."OnThe Unpossessed".The New York Review of Books.RetrievedOctober 21,2019.(subscription required).This article is the introduction to theNYRBedition of the novel.
  5. ^abcRabinowitz, Paula (March 1, 2009)."Tess Slesinger 1905 – 1945".Jewish Women's Archive.RetrievedMarch 16,2013.
  6. ^"Slesinger, Tess | Encyclopedia.com".www.encyclopedia.com.Retrieved2024-02-20.
  7. ^abWald 1987,p. 65.
  8. ^Showalter, Elaine (2009).A Jury of Her Peers.Random House Digital, Inc.ISBN9780307271457.
  9. ^"Slesinger, Tess | Encyclopedia.com".www.encyclopedia.com.Retrieved2024-02-20.
  10. ^"July 16: Tess Slesinger and The Unpossessed".Jewish Currents.Retrieved2024-02-20.
  11. ^"Tess Slesinger".Jewish Women's Archive.Retrieved2024-04-01.
  12. ^"WOMB VERSUS WORLD".www.bookforum.com.Retrieved2024-02-20.
  13. ^Wald 1987,p. 259.
  14. ^Ricks, Christopher(July 22, 1971)."Convulsive Throes".The New York Review of Books.RetrievedOctober 21,2019.(subscription required)

Further reading

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  • Wald, Alan M.(1987).The New York Intellectuals: the rise and decline of the anti-Stalinist left from the 1930s to the 1980s.Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.ISBN978-0-8078-1716-2.
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