Dreadful2013

Born in Massachusetts in 1916, John Horne Burns grew up steeped in the traditions of New England and alienated from them--a defiant Irish Catholic amid staid Yankees. After Andover and Harvard he taught English at the Loomis School in Windsor, Connecticut, one of the few prestigious prep schools that would hire a Catholic at the time. Burns stood out there as a precocious young man with enormous intellectual and musical gifts, a wicked sense of humor, an ability to inspire selected students (and infuriate colleagues), and boundless literary ambition. He was also--though it could barely be acknowledged in that time and place--gay. During World War II, Burns was stationed in North Africa and Italy, and from this experience he wrote his groundbreaking debut novel set in Naples, The Gallery...