Jane Bowles

Jane Bowles (; born Jane Sydney Auer; February 22, 1917 – May 4, 1973) was an American writer and playwright.

Early life Born into a Jewish family in New York City on February 22, 1917, to Sydney Auer (father) and Claire Stajer (mother), Jane Bowles spent her childhood in Woodmere, New York, on Long Island. She had had a bad knee from birth, which was later broken from falling off a horse when she was a teenager. After knee surgery, she developed tuberculous arthritis, and her mother took her to Switzerland for treatment, where she attended boarding school. She also attended Julia Richmond High School in New York and the Stoneleigh School for Girls in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

At this point in her life, she developed a passion for literature coupled with insecurities. She developed phobias related to dogs, sharks, mountains, jungles, and elevators as well as fears of being burned alive. and in the following year (1938), they were married and went on a honeymoon in Central America. She visited lesbian bars while they traveled together in Paris. The marriage was a sexual marriage for about a year and a half. Thereafter, Jane and Paul were platonic companions. They both were bisexual, and mainly preferred to have sex outside of their marriage.

After this, Jane and Paul went to Mexico, where Jane later met Helvetia Perkins (1895–1965), who became her lover.

Career In 1943, her novel Two Serious Ladies was published. The Bowleses lived in New York until 1947, when Paul moved to Tangier, Morocco; Jane followed him in 1948. While in Morocco, Jane had an intense, complicated relationship with a Moroccan woman named Cherifa. She also had a close relationship with the torch singer Libby Holman. Holman was attracted to both Jane and Paul, but Paul did not reciprocate.

In the Summer House In the Summer House was her only full-length play. It was first performed in 1951 in the Hedgerow Theater in Moylan, Pennsylvania. The play opened on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre on December 29, 1953, with music by Paul Bowles, where it ran for two months to mixed reviews and low attendance. Around 1963, the play was revived. The play was revived again in 1993 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater with incidental music by Philip Glass.

The overarching plot is the comparison of an overbearing mother and gentle daughter and a gentle mother and an overbearing daughter. The plot is driven by character interaction and not action. It begins with a monologue by Ms. Gertude Eastman Cuevas, an isolated widow from Southern California who marries a rich Mexican (with a singing and dancing comrade), who is oppressive towards her daughter. The other widow is Ms. Constable and her challenging daughter. The daughters are both unstable.

Miss Cuevas has a suitor which makes the mother feel like she needs to be more overbearing. The first act closes on Ms. Cuevas and her new husband reading newspaper silently.

The second act occurs in a restaurant named The Lobster Bowl and uses intensive food imagery.

Death Bowles, who was an alcoholic, suffered a stroke in 1957 at age 40. The stroke affected her sight and mental capacity, but she pushed through her health problems and continued to write. Her health continued to decline despite various treatments in England and the United States until she had to be admitted to a clinic in Málaga, Spain, where she died in 1973, at age 56.

Legacy In Paul Bowles' semi-autobiographical novel The Sheltering Sky, the characters Port and Kit Moresby were based on him and his wife. Debra Winger played Kit in the film adaptation of the novel. Although Bowles' literary output was not substantial in terms of volume, she was highly respected, with Truman Capote calling her "one of the really original pure stylists" and Tennessee Williams calling her "the most important writer of prose fiction in modern American letters."

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