Sumner Locke Elliott
Sumner Locke Elliott was an Australian-born writer, born on October 18, 1917, near Sydney. His early life was marked by loss and instability, as he was raised by feuding relatives after the death of his mother during childbirth and the absence of his father, a journalist. These experiences of alienation shaped his writing, which began with successful plays in Sydney's Independent Theatre. After serving in the military during World War II, he moved to New York, where he gained recognition for his play "Rusty Bugles," exploring the lives of soldiers.
Elliott transitioned to writing novels in his mid-forties, achieving critical and commercial success with "Careful, He Might Hear You," which drew on his fractured childhood and won the prestigious Miles Franklin Award. Over the next two decades, he continued producing works that reflected his Sydney roots, earning the Patrick White Award in 1977 for lifetime achievement. While he only publicly acknowledged his homosexuality in his final novel, "Fairyland," published in 1990, his works consistently highlighted themes of loneliness and emotional struggle. Elliott passed away on June 24, 1991, leaving behind a rich legacy in literature, drama, and television.
Subject Terms
Sumner Locke Elliott
Australian American novelist and playwright.
- Born: October 17, 1917
- Birthplace: Near Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
- Died: June 24, 1991
- Place of death: New York, New York
Biography
On October 18, 1917, the day after Sumner Locke Elliott was born outside Sydney, his mother, a prominent writer, died of complications from the birth. His father, a journalist serving in the military in Europe, would never pursue a relationship with the child, leaving the upbringing to feuding relatives who battled over Elliott’s custody for nearly twelve years. The painful, very public experience would give to Elliott’s later writing its keen sense of alienation. Drawn to the figure of the mother he never knew, Elliott determined early on that he would pursue writing. Turning initially to drama, he created a name for himself before he was twenty in Sydney’s prestigious Independent Theatre, penning stage plays and radio dramas known for witty dialogue and vivid characters. Following his World War II military service in Australia’s bleak Northern Territory, Elliott returned to Sydney certain that he was gay and unable to accommodate to what he perceived to be his country’s stifling conservatism. He determined to relocate to New York (he would become an American citizen in 1955). While he was awaiting the appropriate documentation, however, he completed his defining theatrical work, Rusty Bugles, a work that captured the ennui of draftees who never saw action. The ensemble drama recreated the frustration, routine anxieties, and salty humor of recruits at an ordnance depot much like the one where Elliott himself had served. By the time the play became a hit, Elliott had moved to New York.
While Broadway success proved elusive, Elliott found quick success writing for the new medium of television, and he scripted some of the most widely respected plays for high-profile drama series on both NBC and CBS during the mid-1950s. It was not until 1960, when Elliott was in his mid-forties, that he decided to explore the novel as medium. His first work, Careful, He Might Hear You, which drew on his own traumatic childhood experiences within his splintered family, was a worldwide best seller. Given its experimental form—it mingled interior monologues with sharp dramatic scenes rich with suggestive imagery—it was also a critical success. It won the coveted Miles Franklin Award for the outstanding work of Australian literature. For the next twenty years, Elliott continued to produce novels that drew on his memories of Sydney, and he produced an œuvre that would secure for him the 1977 Patrick White Award, a lifetime writing achievement award named for Australia’s sole Nobel laureate. Only in Elliott’s final novel, 1990’s Fairyland, which was published after he had secured a stable relationship, did Elliott publicly acknowledge his homosexuality. He died of complications from cancer in New York on June 24, 1991. In a prolific career that spanned six decades and explored multiple media, the defining constants in Elliott’s output are his precise ear for dialogue, his skill at manipulating the defining scene, and his unaffected compassion for the loneliness and spiritual hunger at the heart of his signature characters.
Author Works
Drama:
Interval, pr. 1939
The Cow Jumped Over the Moon, pr. 1939
The Little Sheep Run Fast, pr. 1940
Goodbye to the Music, pr. 1942
Your Obedient Servant, pr. 1943
The Invisible Circus, pr. 1946
Rusty Bugles, pr. 1948
Buy Me Blue Ribbons, pr. 1951
John Murray Anderson's Almanac, pr. 1953
Long Fiction:
Careful, He Might Hear You, 1963
Some Doves and Pythons, 1966
Edens Lost, 1969
The Man Who Got Away, 1972
Going, 1975
Water Under the Bridge, 1977
Rusty Bugles, 1980
Signs of Life, 1981
About Tilly Beamis, 1985
Waiting for Childhood, 1987
Fairyland, 1990
Short Fiction:
Radio Days, 1993
Radio Plays:
Wicked Is the Vine, 1947
Bibliography
Altman, Dennis. "Sumner Locke Elliott Crushed by the Sexual Constraints of the Pre-war World." The Australian, 6 Apr. 2013, www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sumner-locke-elliott-crushed-by-the-sexual-constraints-of-the-pre-war-world/news-story/f22bbabb95a9692e78bd7d82353092a3. Accessed 23 June 2017. Argues that Eliott's novel Edens Lost was largely autobiographical.
Clarke, Sharon. Sumner Locke Elliott: Writing Life; A Biography. Allen & Unwin, 1996. A significant biography of Elliott that draws from conversations with the author as well as his friends in addition to access to his papers.
Flint, Peter B. "Sumner Locke Elliott, a Novelist, Playwright and Actor Dies at 73." The New York Times, 26 June 1991, www.nytimes.com/1991/06/26/obituaries/sumner-locke-elliott-a-novelist-playwright-and-actor-dies-at-73.html?mcubz=1. Accessed 23 June 2017. Obituary covering Elliott's life and work.
Pender, Anne. "Theatre Animals: Sumner Locke Elliott's Invisible Circus." Australasian Drama Studies, vol. 68, 2016, pp. 54–74. Offers a study of Elliott's formative years as a playwright working for the Independent Theatre in Australia.
Roe, Jill. "Elliott, Sumner Locke (1917–1991)." Australian Dictionary of Biography, 2014, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/elliott-sumner-locke-14903. Accessed 23 June 2017. Provides an overview of Elliott's life and major works.