Coleman Dowell
Coleman Dowell was an American writer born on May 29, 1925, in Adairville, Kentucky. He grew up in a rural environment and pursued education through various one-room schools, eventually graduating high school and serving in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II. After the war, he settled in Louisville before moving to New York City, where he began a diverse career that included roles as a typist, model, and songwriter for television. Dowell made significant contributions to the performing arts, including composing approximately one thousand songs for the show "Once Upon a Tune" and writing experimental plays such as "Eve of the Green Grass." His literary output included over twenty-five short stories and several novels, establishing him as a unique voice in the genre of gay Southern gothic literature, characterized by its complex narratives and eccentric characters. Despite receiving critical acclaim, his work did not achieve commercial success, leading to a later life marked by personal struggles. Dowell's memoir, "A Star-Bright Lie," published posthumously, reflects his experiences and was recognized with a Lambda Literary Award. He died by suicide on August 3, 1985, leaving behind a legacy as a talented but often overlooked figure in American literature.
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Subject Terms
Coleman Dowell
Writer
- Born: May 29, 1925
- Birthplace: Adairville, Kentucky
- Died: August 3, 1985
- Place of death: New York, New York
Biography
Robert Coleman Dowell was born on May 29, 1925, in rural Adairville, Kentucky, one of four children born to Morda Wilson Dowell, a farmer, and Beulah Vilett Dowell. He attended several one-room schools before graduating from Simpson County High School, where he worked on the school newspaper. Dowell served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in the Philippines from 1944 to 1945, rising to the rank of sergeant, and was an assistant to the prosecution during war crimes trials in Manila. He also took courses at the University of the Philippines. He returned to the United States in 1946 and lived in Louisville, Kentucky, where he was a full-time member of the National Guard.
In 1950, Dowell moved to New York City, where he worked as a typist and modeled for automobile and airline ads. From 1950 until 1953, he was employed as a songwriter and lyricist for the television program Once Upon a Tune, starring Bea Arthur, Elaine Stritch, Alice Ghostley, and Charlotte Rae. Dowell composed about one thousand songs for the weekly broadcast. He also wrote the plays Gentle Laurel and The Indian Giver.
In 1957, Dowell met Carl Van Vechten to obtain permission to adapt Van Vechten’s novel, The Tattooed Countess (1924), as a musical play. Through the author, Dowell was introduced to many celebrities, including writers Isak Dinesen, Langston Hughes, and Gertrude Stein. Dowell’s musical version of The Tattooed Countess opened in 1961, was reviewed poorly, and closed quickly. Dowell wrote another experimental play, Eve of the Green Grass, produced in 1965, and then abandoned the theater to write novels and short stories.
Beginning in 1962, Dowell published more than twenty-five short stories that appeared primarily in Ambit, Conjunctions, and New Directions: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry. Many of these stories were included in The Houses of Children: Collected Stories, published in 1987. From 1978 to 1985, he also reviewed books for the Louisville Courier-Journal.
Dowell published the first and most accessible of his novels, One of the Children Is Crying, in 1968. Dowell’s novels established him as a writer of what has been called gay Southern gothic—lyrical, dense, elliptical prose involving bizarre characters in convoluted circumstances that is by turns lucid and bewildering, elegant and sexy, funny and disturbing. His work sometimes incorporated journal entries, fragments, and shifts in time and voice. Though generally well reviewed, his work never sold widely because it is difficult to read or categorize, and today Dowell is relegated to the status of a talented but odd cult figure.
For years, Dowell lived off the earnings of his partner, a psychiatrist. While his companion was at work, the author often picked up black men off the street and brought them home or corresponded in the guise of a white woman with black convicts. In ill health and despondent during his later years, Dowell on August 3, 1985, leapt from the balcony of his fifteen floor apartment on Fifth Avenue. His memoir, A Star-Bright Lie, consisting of excerpts from his journals, was published posthumously and won the Editor’s Choice Lambda Literary Award.