View source for Charles R. Jackson

{{Short description|American writer (1903–1968)}}
{{Other people|Charles Jackson}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- For more information see [[:Template:Infobox Writer/doc]]. -->
| name          = Charles R. Jackson
| image         = Portrait of Charles Jackson LCCN2004663075.jpg
| alt           = 
| caption       = Charles Jackson (1950)<br>Photo by [[Carl Van Vechten]]
| birth_name    = Charles Reginald Jackson
| birth_date    = {{birth date|1903|4|6|mf=y}}
| birth_place   = [[Summit, New Jersey]], U.S.
| death_date    = {{death date and age|1968|9|21|1903|4|6|mf=y}}
| death_place   = [[New York City, New York]], U.S.
| resting_place = East Newark Cemetery, Newark, Wayne County, New York, U.S.<ref>{{cite news |title='Lost Weekend' Author Charles Jackson Dies |newspaper=Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York |date=September 23, 1968 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/136589547/ |page=44}}</ref>
| occupation    = Novelist, radio and television writer
| education     = Newark High School, New York
| period        = 
| genre         = [[prose|Fictional prose]]
| subject       = 
| movement      = 
| notable_works = ''[[The Lost Weekend (novel)|The Lost Weekend]]''
| spouse        = {{marriage|Rhoda Copland Booth|1938}}
| partner       = 
| children      = 2
| relatives     = 
}}

'''Charles Reginald Jackson''' (April 6, 1903{{spaced ndash}}September 21, 1968) was an American writer. He wrote the 1944 novel ''[[The Lost Weekend (novel)|The Lost Weekend]]''.

==Early life==
Charles R. Jackson was born in [[Summit, New Jersey]] on April 6, 1903, the son of Frederick George and Sarah Williams Jackson.<ref name="birth"/>  His family moved to [[Newark, New York]] in 1907, and nine years later his older sister, Thelma, and younger brother, Richard, were killed while riding in a car that was struck by an express train.<ref name="birth">[http://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ms1070_fullguide.html Guide to the Papers of Charles R. Jackson, circa 1920 – circa 1970] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191202113521/http://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ms1070_fullguide.html |date=2019-12-02 }}, [[Dartmouth College]]. Accessed February 20, 2011. "Charles Reginald Jackson was born in Summit, New Jersey, on April 6, 1903, the third of five children of Frederick George and Sarah Williams Jackson."</ref><ref name="wsj2013"/>  He graduated from Newark High School in 1921.<ref>{{cite book |last= Jackson |first=Charles|others=Crowley, John |title=The Sunnier Side: Arcadian Tales |year=1995 |publisher =Syracuse University Press |isbn= 0-815-60327-4 |page=xiii|chapter=Introduction}}</ref>  He attended [[Syracuse University]], joining a fraternity there, but left during his freshman year after a "furtive sexual encounter with a fellow member of his fraternity, who then spread word of the incident in such a way that only Jackson came in for public disgrace"; a fictionalized version of that experience was later incorporated into ''[[The Lost Weekend (novel)|The Lost Weekend]]''.<ref name="wsj2013">{{cite web| title= A Great American Biography| date= March 15, 2013| url= https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324582804578344092077098404 | first= Adam |last= Kirsch | author-link= Adam Kirsch | publisher= [[The Wall Street Journal]] | access-date=2013-03-25}}</ref>

As a young man, he worked as an editor for local newspapers and in various bookstores in Chicago and New York prior to falling ill with [[tuberculosis]].  From 1927 to 1931, Jackson was confined to sanatoriums and eventually recovered in [[Davos, Switzerland]].  His battle with tuberculosis cost him a lung and served as a catalyst for his [[alcoholism]].

==Career==
He returned to New York at the height of the [[Great Depression]] and his difficulty in finding work spurred on his [[binge drinking]].  His battle to stop drinking started in late 1936 and was largely won by 1938. On March 4, 1938, Jackson married magazine writer Rhoda Booth. They later had two daughters, Sarah (born 1940) and Kate (born 1943).<ref>Crowley 1995 p. xiv</ref>

During this time he was a [[freelancer|free-lance writer]] and wrote radio scripts. Jackson's first published story, "Palm Sunday", appeared in the ''[[Partisan Review]]'' in 1939. It focused on the debauched organist of a church the narrators attended as children.<ref>Austen, Roger. ''Playing the Game: The Homosexual Novel in America'', (New York, NY: Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc), 103</ref>

In the 1940s, Jackson wrote a trio of novels, beginning with ''[[The Lost Weekend (novel)|The Lost Weekend]]'' published by [[Farrar & Rinehart]] in 1944. The autobiographical novel chronicled a struggling writer's five-day drinking binge. It earned Jackson lasting recognition.<ref>Stryker, Susan. ''Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback'', (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books), 14</ref>  While working on ''The Lost Weekend'', Jackson earned as much as $1000 per week writing scripts for the radio soap opera ''Sweet River'', about a widowed minister and his two sons.<ref>{{cite magazine | title = Soapland III – Sculptors in Ivory | magazine = The New Yorker | date = 12 June 1948 | first = James | last = Thurber | pages = 48–58| url = https://www.newyorker.com/archive/1948/06/12/1948_06_12_048_TNY_CARDS_000215886 | access-date = 11 July 2012}}</ref>

In 1945, [[Paramount Pictures]] paid $35,000 (about $611,000 in 2024) for the rights to adapt ''The Lost Weekend'' into the [[The Lost Weekend (film)|film version of the same name]]. The [[Academy Award for Best Picture|Academy Award]] winning film was directed by [[Billy Wilder]] and starred [[Ray Milland]] in the lead role of Don Birnam.<ref name=Slide>{{cite book|last=Slide|first=Anthony|title=Lost Gay Novels: A Reference Guide to Fifty Works from the First Half of the Twentieth Century|year=2003|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=1-560-23414-8|url=https://archive.org/details/lostgaynovelsref00slid}}</ref>{{rp|101}} At the height of his career, Charles R. Jackson lectured at various colleges. A radio play, "A Letter from Home", was performed on the Columbia Playhouse and broadcast on March 20, 1939, as part of the [[Columbia Workshop]] program.

Jackson's second published novel of the 1940s, titled ''The Fall of Valor'', was released in 1946 and takes its name from a passage in [[Herman Melville]]'s ''[[Moby-Dick]]''. Set in 1943, it detailed a [[Professor#Canada and the United States|professor's]] obsession with a young, handsome Marine.  ''The Fall of Valor'' received mixed reviews, and, though sales were respectable, was considerably less successful than Jackson's famous first novel. Jackson's ''The Outer Edges'' was released in 1948 and dealt with the gruesome rape and murder of two girls in Westchester County, New York. ''The Outer Edges'' also received mixed reviews, and sales were poor relative to his previous novels. Jackson's later works included two collections of short stories, ''The Sunnier Side: Twelve Arcadian Tales'' (1950) and ''Earthly Creatures'' (1953).

He adapted [[Evelyn Waugh]]'s short story "The Man Who Liked Dickens" for the ''[[General Electric Theater]]'' program as "High Green Wall". The episode starred [[Joseph Cotten]] and [[Thomas Gomez]] in 1954. ''[[Naked City (TV series)|Naked City]]'' adapted his short story for the episode "The Other Face of Goodness" in 1958 about a serial killer, starring [[James Franciscus]] and [[John McIntire]].

==Later years==
Throughout his career, Jackson continued to struggle with an addiction to alcohol and pills. Over the years, he underwent psychoanalysis to help him kick his addictions. After the success of ''The Lost Weekend'', Jackson began taking pills (mainly the sedative [[Seconal]]) and drinking again. He later told his wife that unless he was under the influence of Seconal, he would suffer from [[writer's block]] and become depressed.<ref>Crowley 1995 pp. xix, xx</ref>

In September 1952, he attempted suicide and was committed to [[Bellevue Hospital]]. He was readmitted four months later after suffering a [[nervous breakdown]]. After his release, he went on an alcohol and [[paraldehyde]] binge, during which he wrote six short stories and began writing ''A Second-Hand Life''. In 1953, he checked into an alcoholism clinic and joined [[Alcoholics Anonymous]] (AA).<ref>Crowley 1995 p. xxi</ref> Jackson later also spoke about alcoholism to large groups, sharing his experience. A recording of his talk in Cleveland, Ohio in May 1959 is still distributed in the AA community.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://xa-speakers.org/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1797 |title=Charles J. from New York, NY speaking in Cleveland, OH |work=XA-Speakers |date=May 1959 |accessdate=March 9, 2021}}</ref> He was the first speaker in Alcoholics Anonymous to address drug dependence ([[barbiturate]]s and paraldehyde) openly as part of his story.

By the mid-1950s, Jackson was sober but was no longer writing. As a result, he and his family began struggling financially. He and his wife had to sell their New Hampshire home and eventually moved to [[Sandy Hook, Connecticut]]. Jackson's wife got a job at the Yale [[Center of Alcohol Studies]] while Jackson moved to New York City, where he rented an apartment at [[The Dakota]]. He continued to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and attempted to begin writing again. In the early 1960s, three of his short stories appeared in ''[[McCall's]]'' magazine, but Jackson still struggled with periodic bouts of writer's block. He later worked as a story editor for the anthology television series ''[[Kraft Television Theatre]]'' and got a job teaching writing at [[Rutgers University]].<ref>Crowley 1995 pp. xxii–xxiii</ref>

A long-time heavy smoker, Jackson suffered from [[chronic obstructive pulmonary disease]]. Towards the end of his life, he was admitted to the [[Will Rogers Memorial Hospital]] in Saranac Lake, New York, after a relapse of tuberculosis. [[Will Rogers Institute]] even filmed a short theatrical release called "Place in the Country" about his second visit to the [[Will Rogers Memorial Hospital]]. After his release, [[Macmillan Publishers]] gave him an advance for a new book. Jackson moved to the [[Hotel Chelsea]] and resumed work on ''A Second-Hand Life'', a novel that he began writing some 15 years earlier. Upon its release, the book received mediocre reviews but sold well.<ref>Crowley 1995 p. xxiii</ref>

==Death==
On September 21, 1968, Jackson died of [[barbiturate poisoning]] at [[St. Vincent's Hospital (Manhattan)|St. Vincent's Hospital]] in New York City. His death was ruled a suicide.<ref>{{cite news |url= https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=38VIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZwENAAAAIBAJ&pg=6125,2424461&dq=charles+jackson+suicide&hl=en |title=Novelist's Death Ruled Suicide|date=September 23, 1968|work=Meriden Journal |page=7|access-date=February 20, 2013}}</ref> At the time of his death, Jackson was working on a sequel to ''The Lost Weekend'' entitled ''Farther and Wider''.

Jackson had relapsed into alcoholism during the months before his death, and had become estranged from his family. Jackson had been [[closeted]] for the greater part of his life and, in his later years, attempted to come to terms with his [[bisexuality]]. Jackson identified as bisexual late in life and began living with his male lover in 1965.<ref name=Slide />{{rp|3, 101}}

==Bibliography==
===Novels===
* ''[[The Lost Weekend (novel)|The Lost Weekend]]'' (1944)
* ''The Fall of Valor'' (1946)
* ''The Outer Edges'' (1948) aka ''Thread of Evil''
* ''A Second-Hand Life'' (1967)

===Story collections===
* ''[[The Sunnier Side: Twelve Arcadian Tales]]'' (1950)
* ''[[Earthly Creatures]]'' (1953)

=== Short stories ===

{| class="wikitable"
|+
|-
! Title !! Publication !! Collected in
|-
| "Palm Sunday" || ''[[Partisan Review]]'' 6.4 (Summer 1939) || rowspan=3| ''The Sunnier Side''
|-
|  "[[Rachel's Summer (short story)|Rachel's Summer]]" ''Partisan Review'' 6.5 (Fall 1939)
|-
| "A Night Visitor" || ''[[Mademoiselle (magazine)|Mademoiselle]]'' (June 1944)
|-
| "The Long Way Home" || ''[[Collier's]]'' (August 5, 1944) || -
|-
| "Funny Dream" || ''[[The New Yorker]]'' (March 17, 1945) || -
|-
| "Tenting Tonight"<br>aka "Thanks for a Wonderful Time" || ''[[Good Housekeeping]]'' (May 1949) || rowspan=9| ''The Sunnier Side''
|-
| "The Sunnier Side" || ''[[Cosmopolitan (magazine)|Cosmopolitan]]'' (March 1950)
|-
|"[[The Band Concert (short story)|The Band Concert]]"|| rowspan=7| ''The Sunnier Side'' (1950)
|-
| "The Sisters"
|-
| "In the Chair"
|-
| "The Benighted Savage"
|-
| "[[How War Came to Arcadia, N. Y.]]"
|-
| "By the Sea"
|-
| "Sophistication"
|-
| "The Break" || ''Collier's'' (September 1, 1951) || ''Earthly Creatures''
|-
| "Cousin Agnes" || ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'' (March 1952) || -
|-
| "Pretend You're a Hero" || ''[[John Bull (magazine)|John Bull]]'' (May 10, 1952) || -
|-
| "Last Laughter" || ''[[Woman's Home Companion]]'' (June 1952) || -
|-
| "[[The Boy Who Ran Away (short story)|The Boy Who Ran Away]]" || ''[[Harper's Bazaar]]'' (November 1952) || ''Earthly Creatures''
|-
| "Millstones" || ''Esquire'' (May 1953) || -
|-
| "Parting at Morning"<br>aka "A Mother's Day Story" || ''Today's Woman'' (May 1953) || ''Earthly Creatures''
|-
| "Don't Call Me Sonny" || ''Esquire'' (July 1953) || -
|-
| "Romeo" || rowspan=7| ''Earthly Creatures'' (September 1953) || rowspan=7| ''Earthly Creatures''
|-
| "A Sunday Drive"
|-
| "Money"
|-
| "The Cheat"
|-
| "The Outlander"
|-
| "Old Men and Boys"
|-
| "The Sleeper Awakened"
|-
| "Landscape with Figures" || ''Esquire'' (December 1953) || -
|-
| "I Don't Fool Around" || ''[[St. John Publications|Manhunt]]'' (August 1954) || -
|-
| "A Bachelor in the Making" || ''Manhunt'' (December 1954) || -
|-
| "Midsummer Night" || ''[[Gent (magazine)|The Gent]]'' (October 1957) || -
|-
| "One O'clock in the Morning" || ''McCall's'' (April 1961) || -
|-
| "Janie" || ''The Gent'' (April 1963) || -
|-
| "The Loving Offenders" || ''McCall's'' (July 1963) || -
|-
| "The Lady Julia" || ''McCall's'' (April 1965) || -
|-
|}

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

===Bibliography===
{{refbegin|indent=yes}}
* {{cite book| title=Playing the Game: The Homosexual Novel in America| last=Austen| first=Roger| publisher=The Bobbs-Merrill Company| location=Indianapolis| edition=| year=1977| isbn=978-0-672-52287-1| url=https://archive.org/details/playinggamehomos00aust}}
* {{cite book | title=Farther and Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson| last=Bailey | first=Blake | publisher=Alfred A. Knopf| location = New York | edition =| year=2013 | isbn=978-0-307-27358-1}}
* {{cite book | title=Pulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps | last=Bronski | first=Michael | publisher=St. Martin's Griffin | location=New York| edition=| year=2003 | isbn=978-0-312-25267-0 | url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780312252670 }}
* {{cite book | title=Deadly Closets: The Fiction of Charles Jackson | last=Connelly | first=Mark | publisher=University Press of America | edition = | year=2001 | isbn=978-0-7618-1912-7}}
* {{cite book | title=The Golden Age of Gay Fiction | last=Gunn | first=Drewey | publisher=MLR Press | location= Albion, NY | edition = | year=2009 | isbn=978-1-60820-048-1}}
* {{cite book | title=[[Lost Gay Novels|Lost Gay Novels: A Reference Guide to Fifty Works from the First Half of the Twentieth Century]] | last=Slide | first =Anthony | publisher=Harrington Park Press | location=Binghamton, NY | edition = | year=2003 | isbn= 978-1-56023-413-5}}
* {{cite book | title=Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback | last=Stryker | first=Susan | publisher=Chronicle Books | location=San Francisco | edition=| year=2001 | isbn=978-0-8118-3020-1 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/queerpulppervert0000stry }}
{{refend}}

==External links==
* {{FadedPage|id=Jackson, Charles R.|name=Charles R. Jackson|author=yes}}
* [http://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ms1070.html The Papers of Charles R. Jackson] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150915141424/http://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ms1070.html |date=2015-09-15 }} in the [[Baker Memorial Library|Dartmouth College Library]]
* {{IMDb name|0413352}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20061013070619/http://home.earthlink.net/~richardamory.com/id3.html Charles Jackson's "The Fall of Valor" (Archived)]
* [http://www.wnyc.org/story/276834-lost-weekends-and-literary-dreams-charles-jackson/ Discussion on Charles Jackson] by Blake Bailey, biographer and writer of ''Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson''  on [[WNYC]] March 20, 2013 Leonard Lopate show.

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Charles R.}}
[[Category:1903 births]]
[[Category:1968 suicides]]
[[Category:20th-century American male novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century American screenwriters]]
[[Category:American male screenwriters]]
[[Category:American male television writers]]
[[Category:American radio writers]]
[[Category:American television writers]]
[[Category:Barbiturates-related deaths]]
[[Category:Bisexual male writers]]
[[Category:Bisexual novelists]]
[[Category:Bisexual screenwriters]]
[[Category:Drug-related suicides in New York City]]
[[Category:American LGBTQ novelists]]
[[Category:American LGBTQ screenwriters]]
[[Category:American bisexual writers]]
[[Category:American bisexual men]]
[[Category:LGBTQ people from New Jersey]]
[[Category:Novelists from New Jersey]]
[[Category:Novelists from New York (state)]]
[[Category:People from Newark, New York]]
[[Category:People from Sandy Hook, Connecticut]]
[[Category:Screenwriters from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Suicides in New York City]]
[[Category:Writers from New York City]]
[[Category:Writers from Summit, New Jersey]]
[[Category:Drug-related deaths in New York City]]
[[Category:1968 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American LGBTQ people]]
[[Category:Male suicides]]