Robert Cantwell

Robert Emmett Cantwell (January 31, 1908 – December 8, 1978), known as Robert Cantwell, was a novelist and critic. His first novel, Laugh and Lie Down is an early example, twenty years before Jack Kerouac, of the American classic genre the "road novel", and also an important example of the "Depression novel" period genre. His most notable work, The Land of Plenty, focuses on a lumber mill in a thinly disguised version of his hometown in Washington state.

Background

Robert Emmett Cantwell was born on January 31, 1908, in Little Falls (now Vader), Washington. His parents were Charles James Cantwell, an engineer, and Nina Adelia Hanson. At some point between 1933 and 1936, he worked as assistant literary editor at The New Republic under Malcolm Cowley, who was literary editor, according to Mary McCarthy in her 1992 posthumous Intellectual Memoirs: New York, 1936–1938; McCarthy also remembers him in the mid-1930s as "a Communist, a real member."

Time magazine

On April 23, 1935, and through 1936, Cantwell joined the editorial staff of Time as book reviewer. In 1937, he joined Times sister magazine, Fortune. In 1938, he returned to Time as associate editor (1938−1945). In 1939, he helped his friend Chambers get his old job as book reviewer.

In 1941, Cantwell suffered a nervous breakdown. He took off work and received treatment at the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum. He spent three years researching and writing the biography, Nathaniel Hawthorne: The American Years (1948). McNiece (Mrs. George Stolz Jr.), Betsy Ann (Mrs. Walter Pusey III), and Mary Elizabeth Emmett (Mrs. Lars-Erik Nelson).

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of Cantwell's first short story, "Hanging by My Thumbs": "Mark it well, for my guess is that he's learned a better lesson from Proust than Thornton Wilder did and has a destiny of no mean star."

T. S. Matthews wrote, "Before I met him, I knew that he was reported to be the best book reviewer in New York; after only three book reviews, everybody admitted it." Colleague John Hersey described them as follows: Time was in an interesting phase; an editor named Tom Matthews had gathered a brilliant group of writers, including James Agee, Robert Fitzgerald, Whittaker Chambers, Robert Cantwell, Louis Kronenberger, and Calvin Fixx... They were dazzling. Time's style was still very hokey—“backward ran sentences till reeled the mind”—but I could tell, even as a neophyte, who had written each of the pieces in the magazine, because each of these writers had such a distinctive voice.

Hiss Case

Whittaker Chambers joined Calvin Fixx as close friend of Cantwell's, then became an emblem of his fears In October 1931, Cantwell attended a dinner party in honor of his first novel, Laugh and Lie Down, where he met Whittaker Chambers, friend Mike Intrator, and Intrator's wife Grace Lumpkin. At the time, Chambers had become an editor at the New Masses magazine; he and Cantwell became "very close friends." Soon after meeting, Cantwell joined the John Reed Club. Chambers had used the alias "Lloyd Cantwell" during his time in the Soviet underground, including the formation of the American Feature Writers Syndicate with comrade John Loomis Sherman (using the alias Charles Francis Chase) and literary agent Maxim Lieber. )

In later years, Cantwell would express skepticism that Chambers even was in the underground; at others, he would express great fear of Soviet retribution (for Chambers' defection–and Cantwell's role in it?). Nathaniel Hawthorne: The American Years (1948, 1971) Famous American Men of Letters, illustrated by Gerald McCann (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1956) Alexander Wilson: Naturalist and Pioneer: A Biography, decorated by Robert Ball (1961) Real McCoy: The Life and Times of Norman Selby (1971) Hidden Northwest (1972)Editorial works: The Humorous Side of Erskine Caldwell anthology edited and introduced by Robert Cantwell (1951) White Rose of Memphis by William C. Falkner, introduced by Robert Cantwell (1953) Charterhouse of Parma, by Marie-Henri Beyle (Stendhal, translated by Lady Mary Loyd, revised by Robert Cantwell, preface by Honoré de Balzac, illustrated by Rafaello Busoni (1955) Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, introduced by Robert Cantwell (1956) Far from the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy, introduced by Robert Cantwell, engraved by Agnes Miller Parker (1958) The History of Pendennis by William Makepeace Thackeray, introduced by Robert Cantwell (1961)Unfinished works:''' Biography of E. A. Filene with Lincoln Steffens (1934) Autobiography of James B. McNamara, convicted labor dynamiter Small Boston, projected novel from the early 1970s The FBI, privacy, and Cantwell's involvement with politics and Whittaker Chambers Four Novelists on William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, James T. Farrell and Erskine Caldwell "The Communists and the CIO," The New Republic (1938)

Cantwell wrote articles for TIME and Fortune magazines from 1935 to 1941.

Cantwell wrote articles mostly for Sports Illustrated'' from 1956 to 1978.