James Gould Cozzens

James Gould Cozzens (August 19, 1903 – August 9, 1978) was a Pulitzer prize-winning American writer whose work enjoyed an unusual degree of popular success and critical acclaim for more than three decades.^[1][2] His 1949 Pulitzer win was for the WWII race novel Guard of Honor, which more than one critic considered one of the most important accounts of the war.^[2] His 1957 Pulitzer nomination was for the best-selling novel By Love Possessed,^[3] which was later made into a popular 1961 film.^[4]

Culturally conservative critics' widespread acclaim for "By Love Possessed", along with a controversial 1957 interview that Cozzens gave to Time,^[5] led to an aggressive backlash by author Irving Howe in the New Republic and avant-garde critic Dwight Macdonald in Commentary.^[6] Macdonald's essay is still considered "the most persuasively devastating review of the century" more than fifty years later.^[7] The criticism, aimed as much at critics catering to a middle- rather than highbrow sensibility as the author himself,^[8] did extensive damage to Cozzens' reputation, both during the last 20 years of his life, and posthumously.^[2]

In recent years, there have been multiple attempts at resuscitating Cozzens' place in the literary pantheon. D.G. Myers called him "perhaps America's best forgotten novelist."^[9] Writer Joseph Epstein has offered similar praise, both in an essay for Commentary magazine,^[10] as well as in a chapter for his book Plausible Prejudices.^[11] The late biographer and academic editor Matthew J. Bruccoli extended those efforts in a biography and related scholarly work.^[12] There has also been recent interest in screenplays based on his work: in 2018, the Hollywood Reporter reported that the rights to Sam Peckinpah's screenplay Castaway, based on Cozzens' novella, had been acquired by a producer.^[13]