West, Jessamyn

▪ American writer

in full  Mary Jessamyn West  

born July 18, 1902, Jennings county, Indiana, U.S.

died Feb. 23, 1984, Napa, Calif.

      American writer, a master of the short story and an accomplished novelist, who wrote with particular sensitivity about mother-daughter relationships. She is perhaps best remembered for The Friendly Persuasion (1945), which gathered stories that reflect her Quaker heritage.

      While growing up, West was much influenced by her mother's Quakerism, and in 1923 she graduated from Whittier (California) College, a Quaker institution. She taught in a rural school in Hemet, California (1924–28), and then resumed her education with a summer in England at the University of Oxford (1929), after which she enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley.

      Before completing her work for a Ph.D., West fell ill and was diagnosed as having terminal tuberculosis. She spent two dispiriting years in a Los Angeles sanatorium and was then sent home to die; under her mother's care, however, she recovered. During her long convalescence her mother told her tales of her own Indiana farm childhood and of her more distant pioneer forebears. West soon began writing stories and sketches inspired by her mother's tales.

      West's stories about two Quaker characters, Jess and Eliza Birdwell, began appearing in such magazines as the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, and the Ladies' Home Journal and in 1945 were collected in her first book, The Friendly Persuasion. The book was well received by critics for its warmth, delicate artistry, and beguiling simplicity. Invited to help create a screenplay for a motion picture based on the stories (released in 1956), she subsequently recounted her Hollywood experience in To See the Dream (1957).

      West's first novel, The Witch Diggers (1951), was also set in southern Indiana and featured some rather Gothic details. Her later books include Cress Delahanty (1953), a collection of stories; Love Is Not What You Think (1959), nonfiction; A Matter of Time (1966), a novel; Except for Me and Thee (1969), a continuation of the story of the Birdwells; Hide and Seek (1973), a volume of memoirs and reflections; The Secret Look (1974), poetry; The Woman Said Yes: Encounters with Life and Death (1976), her autobiography; and Collected Stories (1986).

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