Walker Winslow

Walker Winslow was born in Idaho. His father, Burt Winslow, died when Walker was two and a half. His mother remarried when Walker was five,Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) p.5 and the stern approval-withholding nature of his step-father played a dominating and detrimental role in Walker's psychology.Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) passim e.g. p.426 Walker left home at the age of sixteen and joined the peacetime army,Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) p.11 and was already drinking heavily by the age of 18.See Biographical Note to the Walker Winslow correspondence at the Kansas Historical Society website https://www.kshs.org/archives/223249

In the mid 1930s Winslow was writing poetry, working on a novel, and living in Honolulu,News Notes, in Poetry, Vol. 46, No. 6 (Sep., 1935), Poetry Foundation, pp. 354-356Ox Cart, Prairie Schooner, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Fall 1934), p.220, University of Nebraska Press where he had moved with his wife Kathryn,Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) p.19, based on Kathryn's own identification of herself as 'Virginia' in the autobiographical book, see Kathryn Winslow, Henry Miller: Full of Life, (St Martin's Press, New York, 1986) p.154 who was also writing and publishing poetry.Ox Cart, Prairie Schooner, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Winter 1936), pp.322-324, University of Nebraska Press In Hawaii Winslow worked in the publicity departments of the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce and also in the sugar industry.James Reidel, Vanished Act: Life and Art of Weldon Kees (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), p.66 His writing also appeared in the left wing magazine The Anvil,United States. Congress. House. Special Committee on Un-American Activities (1938-1944), Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, Part 9, Volume 1, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1944 and Kathryn kept up a correspondence with its editor, the novelist Jack Conroy, for the next dozen or so years.Kathryn Winslow, Henry Miller: Full of Life, St Martin's Press, New York, 1986, pp.203-204 Walker's problems with alcohol continued and worsened, leading to him voluntarily admitting himself to a psychiatric hospital for one month.Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) pp.21, 25 Walker and Kathryn ended their marriage, which it turned out had never been legal because Walker had not actually divorced from an earlier wife, having simply deserted her and having assumed that she would have had the marriage annulled.Kathryn Winslow, Henry Miller: Full of Life, St Martin's Press, New York, 1986, p.156 Walker and Kathryn remained on good terms and kept up a frequent, at times daily, correspondence.Kathryn Winslow, Henry Miller: Full of Life, St Martin's Press, New York, 1986, p.153 After their separation, Kathryn moved to San Francisco, and Walker soon followed her there, before heading down to South California to the area where his parents lived and to the county where his first wedding had taken place, to sort things out.Kathryn Winslow, Henry Miller: Full of Life, St Martin's Press, New York, 1986, p.157 Kathryn later heard that while he had been visiting his parents, Walker had met again a "sort of cousin,"Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) p.96 who had, through "some dim relationship" with his family, entered his life several times during his childhood; she had been also visiting from New York. After a period of intense correspondence the two reunited, when she travelled to Nevada for a divorce,Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) p.98 and the two quickly got married.

In 1938 Winslow was living in Portland, Oregon,Ox Cart, Prairie Schooner, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Winter 1938), pp. 323-324, University of Nebraska Press and working on 'Mining Life in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest' for the Federal Writers' Project.{{Cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/resource/wpalh2.29080112/?sp=4&st=text|title=Image 4 of [Mining Life in Oregon]|website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA}} By 1939 he had been transferred to Denver, ColoradoOx Cart, Prairie Schooner, Fall 1939, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Fall 1939), pp. 208-210, University of Nebraska Press with the help of his newAt the end of a drinking binge, Winslow told Weldon Kees that Helen was his fourth wife, (James Reidel, Vanished Act: Life and Art of Weldon Kees (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), p.68), although in If a Man Be Mad he does state that he frequently fabricated much including entire identities when he was on a binge. On p.389 of If a Man Be Mad (Gollancz, 1952) he says: "I who had been a constitutional liar in regard to my personal life ..." wife Helen's former father-in-law, the artist Boardman Robinson. Helen Elizabeth Simons (b. 5 Sept 1908) had been married to John Whitney Robinson, and had been an actress and a dancer in New York; she knew figures from that city's literary scene, such as Sinclair Lewis and Thomas Wolfe, and herself had manuscript drafts in progress,James Reidel, Vanished Act: Life and Art of Weldon Kees (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), p.67 having already published, in 1937,[https://www.worldcat.org/title/pity-for-women/oclc/20787384?tab=details WorldCat entry for Pity For Women] under the pseudonym Helen Anderson (Anderson being her mother's maiden name) the early lesbian novel Pity for women. In Denver, Walker and Helen became friends of Weldon Kees and his wife Ann, after they rented an apartment near the Kees.James Reidel, Vanished Act: Life and Art of Weldon Kees (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), pp.66 - 69 Weldon Kees had known not only of Helen's novel, but also had been in particular impressed by the fact that Walker had had eight poems appear in an illustrated full page of Esquire.'All Night Coffee Shop', Esquire, November 1935, p.92 [https://classic.esquire.com/article/1935/11/1/all-night-coffee-shop] Winslow was a heavy drinker, and his antics were often described in Ann Kees' letters to the Kees' friend Norris Getty.Robert E. Knoll (ed.), Weldon Kees and the Midcentury Generation, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), p.238 One drinking binge, which started on a Saturday, was fuelled by copious drinks at a dinner with the Kees on Sunday, and culminated a few days later at the house of the poet Thomas Hornsby Ferril, who at that time was a publicity man for Great Western Sugar; Winslow ended up punching the sugar company's president. Following this he was committed to the Colorado Psychopathic Hospital.James Reidel, Vanished Act: Life and Art of Weldon Kees (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), p.68 He separated from Helen and lived a down-and-out alcoholic's existence in New York, ending up in Bellevue Hospital.Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952)pp.135-172 Helen had moved back in with her former in-laws in Colorado Springs,James Reidel, Vanished Act: Life and Art of Weldon Kees (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), p.69 and arranged a divorce.Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) p.171

Winslow moved from Bellevue to a Christian-run institution for alcoholics in a rural setting about fifty miles from New York, and while there he started working on an old manuscript for a novel.Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952)pp.176-190 In 1941, after returning to the city, he was involved with Alcoholics Anonymous in its early days; the wider publicity that a Saturday Evening Post article{{cite journal |url=http://www.aa.org/pdf/products/p-12_theJackAlexArticle1.pdf |title=Alcoholics Anonymous |date=1 March 1941 |author=Jack Alexander |journal=Saturday Evening Post |edition=Reprinted in booklet form |publisher=Alcoholics Anonymous World Services |access-date=12 December 2009 |archive-date=2 December 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081202003927/http://www.aa.org/pdf/products/p-12_theJackAlexArticle1.pdf |isbn=978-0-89638-199-5 |url-status=dead }} gave the organisation led to growth and changes, which at first Winslow had been swept up in, but in the end led to him tapering off his involvement.Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952)pp.196-203 That year Man in Paradise, subtitled 'A Novel of Hawaii as it is today,' was published by Smith & Durrell, New York[https://www.worldcat.org/title/7560122 WorldCat entry for Man in paradise]. One of the novel's themes was the growing influence of the island's resident Japanese population; the book came out in late November,Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) p.211 not much more than a week before the attack on Pearl Harbor.Kathryn Winslow, Henry Miller: Full of Life, St Martin's Press, New York, 1986, p.152

On a visit to his mother and step-father, Winslow suffered some form of psychotic breakdown which involved hallucinations.Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) pp.215-242 Upon release he found life in the outside world too daunting, and struck upon the idea of working as an attendant in a psychiatric facility, where not only could he find some connection with patients, but also be in a safer and controlled environment.Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) pp.243-277 He then moved on to work as a ward attendant in the psychiatric wards of a Veteran's Administration facility,Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) pp.333-365 where he worked until 30 December 1944.Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) Footnote on p.424 During this entire period he did not drink any alcohol.Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) p.432

===Big Sur and Henry Miller===

In the mid 1940s Winslow was in California, and spent time at Big Sur where he was close to Henry Miller, the two of them taking long walks together nearly every evening.Kathryn Winslow, Henry Miller: Full of Life, St Martin's Press, New York, 1986, p.155 In 1945 he helped Miller publish Aller Retour New York in pamphlet form.Arnold, Wayne E. "Never to Return: Aller Retour New York and Henry Miller's Shelved Epistle." Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal, vol. 12, annual 2018, pp.23-73 Miller describes how one morning Winslow woke him early to come and witness a strange phenomenon of what looked like twin stars gyrating near the horizon, and Miller goes on to talk about how there were subsequently many reports of 'flying saucers' in the area.Henry Miller, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, New York: New Directions, 1957, p.75 Winslow's former wifeArthur Hoyle, The Unknown Henry Miller: A Seeker in Big Sur, Skyhorse Publishing Inc (2016) p.305 Kathryn Winslow, with whom Walker had kept in touch, corresponding regularly, had met Miller at Big Sur in 1944, and four years later with her new husband William Mecham was to open a sort of bookstore devoted to selling his work, called “M, the studio for Henry Miller” in the area of Chicago’s old Jackson Park art colony.{{Cite web|url=https://mariannewolf.com/kathryn-winslow-extraordinary-friendships-led-to-her-remarkable-life/|title=Marianne Wolf, 'Kathryn Winslow: Extraordinary Friendships Led to Her Remarkable Life'}} Her biography of Miller, Henry Miller: Full of Life was published in 1986.Kathryn Winslow, Henry Miller: Full of Life, J.P. Tarcher ; Distributed by St. Martin's Press, Los Angeles, New York, 1986. ([https://www.worldcat.org/title/13794809 WorldCat entry]) In his time at Big Sur, Winslow was working on a new book. Henry Miller described Winslow's approach to work: "And then there was Walker Winslow, who was then writing If a Man Be Mad, which turned out to be a best seller. Walker wrote at top speed, and seemingly without interruption, in a tiny shack by the roadside which Emil White had built to house the steady stream of stragglers who were forever busting in on him for a day, a week, a month or a year."Henry Miller, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (1957), p.12 Walker had rented Emil's studio for $25 a month and Miller was reading each chapter as it came out of the typewriter.Kathryn Winslow, Henry Miller: Full of Life, St Martin's Press, New York, 1986, p.154

By 1947, Winslow was living in New Mexico,'Notes from the Guest Editor', Southwest Review, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Summer 1947), Southern Methodist University, p. 320 and in that year, under the pseudonym Harold Maine, his book If a Man Be Mad was published by Doubleday,Harold Maine, If a Man be Mad, (Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1947) and was subsequently brought out by Victor Gollancz Ltd,Harold Maine, If a Man Be Mad, (Gollancz, London, 1952) London, in 1952 and translated into French by Élisabeth Guertic[https://www.worldcat.org/title/492101793 WorldCat entry for Quand un homme est fou] (as Quand un homme est fou), being published in 1954 by Corrêa.Harold Maine, Quand un homme est fou, (Corrêa, 1954, Broché) In a newspaper review of the book, a clipping of which Winslow kept, and which is annotated with the name Albert Deutsch, presumably the reviewer, the book was described as "absorbing". The review says: "Written by an unusually sensitive artist, the book in many ways is more gripping and certainly more informative than the best-selling The Lost Week-End. Maine saw the insides of several mental hospitals as both patient and ward attendant; his revelations are well worth reading."[https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/223249/page/155 Unidentified newspaper review], marked 'Albert Deutch [sic.] P.M'; clipping in Walker Winslow archive.

Winslow was going by the name Harold Maine in the late 1940s and Edna Manley (b.1908{{Cite web|url=https://findingaids.library.cofc.edu/agents/people/1630|title=Lewisohn, Edna, 1908- | ArchivesSpace Public Interface|website=findingaids.library.cofc.edu}}), whom he married following her divorce from the writer Ludwig Lewisohn,See Biographical Note to the Walker Winslow correspondence at the Kansas Historical Society website https://www.kshs.org/archives/223249 addressed letters to him under that name while he was still working at the Winter Veteran's Hospital in Topeka, Kansas in the middle of 1948.{{Cite web|url=https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/223249/page/24|title=Walker Winslow correspondence - 5 - Kansas Memory, Envelope addressed to Harold Maine from Edna Manley, 22 June 1948|website=www.kansasmemory.org}} Winslow/Maine had initially been invited{{Cite web|url=https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/223249/page/41|title=Walker Winslow correspondence - 6 - Kansas Memory, Letter dated 15 June 1948 from Karl Menninger to Harold Maine|website=www.kansasmemory.org}} by Karl Menninger to present a lecture to the hospital staff on the subject of Ward Management. Menninger noted{{Cite web|url=https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/223249/page/44|title=Walker Winslow correspondence - 9 - Kansas Memory, Letter from Karl Menninger to Harold Maine, 7 October 1948|website=www.kansasmemory.org}} advance notification of the appearance of Harold Maine's article 'We Can Save the Mentally Sick?' in The Saturday Evening Post.{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/sim_saturday-evening-post_1947-11-15_220_20|title=The Saturday Evening Post 1947-11-15: Vol 220 Iss 20|date=November 15, 1947|publisher=Curtis Publishing Co.|via=Internet Archive}} Winslow was being represented by the New York literary agent Maxim Lieber during this period.{{Cite web|url=https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/223249/page/8|title=Walker Winslow correspondence - 1 [Box 2, Folder 4] - Kansas Memory, Letter from Maxim Lieber to Walker Winslow, dated 11 March 1948|website=www.kansasmemory.org}}

At the time of his initial involvement with the Topeka Hospital Winslow was living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Edna was writing to him from Rochester, New York.{{Cite web|url=https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/223249/page/50|title=Walker Winslow correspondence - 15 - Kansas Memory, Letter addressed to the Winslows, 9 Oct 1948|website=www.kansasmemory.org}} When Walker had first moved to Santa Fe, moving from Anderson Creek, he sent a telegram to Kathryn, who was at that time living and working in Los Alamos: "Arriving Santa Fe 2:30 Friday afternoon. Sober, solvent, and full of explanations. Reserve rooms." She met the bus and spent the weekend with him, but due to the restricted nature of Los Alamos she was unable to offer him a place to stay.Kathryn Winslow, Henry Miller: Full of Life, St Martin's Press, New York, 1986, p.158

By late 1949 Walker was living in Pleasanton, California{{Cite web|url=https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/223249/page/95|title=Walker Winslow correspondence - 10 - Kansas Memory, Envelope addressed to the Winslows, 23 Dec 1949|website=www.kansasmemory.org}} and Edna, continuing a pattern of the couple living separately, in Pacific Grove, California.{{Cite web|url=https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/223249/page/72|title=Walker Winslow correspondence - 2 - Kansas Memory, Envelope from Edna to Walker dated 19 October 1949|website=www.kansasmemory.org}}

In 1951 Winslow was back in Big Sur, writing a book about the Menninger psychiatric clinic.Kathryn Winslow, Henry Miller: Full of Life, St Martin's Press, New York, 1986, p.266 When Miller's third wife, Janina Martha Lepska, returned to Big Sur in October 1951, not long before the couple finally divorces, Winslow helped Miller in his efforts to be a sole parent to the couple's two children, after it had been agreed that the children would spend six months with their father followed by six months with their mother.Jay Martin, Always Merry and Bright, Capra Press, Santa Barbara, 1978 p.436

The Menninger book appeared in 1956Books Reviewed in The Scientific Monthly, Science, New Series, Vol. 125, No. 3240 (Feb. 1, 1957), p.199, American Association for the Advancement of ScienceBooks of the Week, The Science News-Letter, Vol. 69, No. 23 (Jun. 9, 1956), p. 364, Society for Science & the Public where he had worked as a lay therapist.See Abstract for the Walker Winslow correspondence at the Kansas Historical Society website https://www.kshs.org/archives/223249 The book is chiefly a biography of Charles Frederick Menninger, but also brings the rest of his family into a skilfully constructed narrative.B. Clifford Hendricks. 'The Menninger Story . Walker Winslow. Doubleday, Garden City, N.Y., 1956'. 350 pp.+plates. Science, [s. l.], v. 125, 1 Feb 1957, p. 199 [https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsair&AN=edsair.doi.dedup.....733f85a6e7b95ea53cb3f4a94c1e9f99&site=eds-live&scope=site]. Accessed 29 Nov. 2022.

Around 1961 Winslow was acting as the director of Beacon House, Monterey, California, which was a community rehabilitation center for alcoholics.{{Cite web|url=https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/223249/page/2821|title=Walker Winslow correspondence - 49 - Kansas Memory, Letter to Karl Menninger, 16 Sept 1962|website=www.kansasmemory.org}} By this time he was a respected counsellor in the treatment of alcoholics, but around 1963 he dropped out of sight and was eventually found holed up in an apartment and drinking heavily.Kathryn Winslow, Henry Miller: Full of Life, St Martin's Press, New York, 1986, p.333 For the remaining years of Winslow's life, his long time friend Henry Miller did what he could to help with money,Jay Martin, Always Merry and Bright, Capra Press, Santa Barbara, 1978 p.467 and also to ensure that Walker received the appropriate hospital and institutional care.

In 1969 Walker Winslow was found dead in his apartment in Pacific Grove, California, having succumbed to pneumonia. He is buried in the El Carmelo Cemetery, Pacific Grove.{{Cite web|url=https://peoplelegacy.com/walker_winslow-6V5p5=|title=Walker Winslow (1905-1969) buried in El Carmelo Cemetery located in Pacific Grove, CA | People Legacy|website=peoplelegacy.com}}

• Arthur Hoyle, The Unknown Henry Miller: A Seeker in Big Sur, (Skyhorse Publishing Inc, 2016)
• Robert E. Knoll (ed.), Weldon Kees and the Midcentury Generation, (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1986)
• Henry Miller, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, (New York: New Directions, 1957)
• James Reidel, Vanished Act: The Life and Art of Weldon Kees, (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2003)
• Kathryn Winslow, Henry Miller: Full of Life, (New York, St Martin's Press, 1986)

• Menninger Foundation

{{Reflist|30em}}

• [https://www.kshs.org/archives/223249 Kansas Historical Society Walker Winslow correspondence archive] .. note there is a spelling error in the abstract section incorrectly giving Edna's name as Mansley
• [https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/223249 Walker Winslow correspondence online material]

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Category:1905 births

Category:1969 deaths

Category:20th-century American novelists

Category:American male novelists

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American male artists

Category:Federal Writers' Project people

Category:Deaths from pneumonia in California

Category:People from Pacific Grove, California