Document Type

Article

Date

1997

Keywords

Alcoholism, Syracuse University, fraternities, suicide, teleplays

Language

English

Disciplines

English Language and Literature

Description/Abstract

IT IS NOT widely known that Charles Jackson, author of The Lost Weekend (1944), once attended Syracuse University. Although the official records for 1922-23 survive only on microfIlm so faint as to be nearly indecipherable, it may still be discerned that he enrolled for six courses in the newly opened College of Business Administration: Business English, Stenography, Journalism, French, Political Science, and Economics. Jackson dropped out after two semesters, however, and he never did finish college. Why he left Syracuse is unclear; but a story based on Jackson's freshman year became a twice-told tale, providing both the plot ofhis unpublished first novel and also a subplot in The Lost Weekend.

In writings about homosexuality and alcoholism, Charles Jackson, author of The Lost Weekend, seems to have drawn on an experience he had as a freshman at Syracuse University. After discussing Jackson's troubled life, Crowley introduces Marty Mann, founder of the National Council on Alcoholism. Among her papers Crowley found a Charles Jackson teleplay, about an alcoholic woman, that is here published for the first time.

Additional Information

Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, Volume XXXII, 1997

Source

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