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Charles R. Jackson, Charles Reginald Jackson, (1902-1968) was an American author, best known for his 1944 novel, The Lost Weekend.

Jackson published The Lost Weekend in 1944, his first novel. The semi-autobiographical novel chronicled a struggling writer's five day binge, and was made into a critically acclaimed film starring Ray Milland the following year. Paramount Pictures paid $50,000 for the rights to adapt the novel.

After his early success, Jackson continued to write, though few of his works approached the commercial and critical success of his first bestseller. Charles R. Jackson died (suicide) in New York City in 1968.

He is sometimes confused with a different Charles Jackson who published a book about his experiences as a World War II prisoner of war.

He was a binge drinker who got recovery and spoke to others in large groups, sharing his experience, strength and hope. A recording of his talk in Cleveland, OH in May of 1959 is available (vide infra xa-speakers). He was the first speaker in AA to openly address drug dependence (Barbiturates and paraldehyde) as part of his story.

Whether he was gay or bisexual is unclear, however his intense, compelling description of homoeroticism in his novel The Fall of Valor has the authenticity of a first person narrative. Anthony Slide, a modern scholar, asserts "Charles R. Jackson identified as bisexual late in life."

Bibliography

• The Lost Weekend (1944)
• The Fall of Valor (1946)
• The Outer Edges (1950)
• The Sunnier Side: Twelve Arcadian Tales (1950)
• Earthly Creatures (1953)
• A Second-Hand Life (1967)

Footnotes

1. Slide, Anthony. Lost Gay Novels: A Reference Guide to Fifty Works from the First Half of the Twentieth Century, (Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press), page 3.

References

• Austen, Roger (1977). Playing the Game: The Homosexual Novel in America (1st ed. ed.). Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. ISBN 978-067252287X. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Bronski, Michael (2003). Pulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps (1st ed. ed.). New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 978-0312252676. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Slide, Anthony (2003). Lost Gay Novels: A Reference Guide to Fifty Works from the First Half of the Twentieth Century (1st ed. ed.). Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press. ISBN 978-156023413X. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Stryker, Susan (2001). Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback (1st ed. ed.). San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-0811830209. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)

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External links

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0413352/bio

http://www.xa-speakers.org/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1797

http://www.nndb.com/people/217/000104902/

http://home.earthlink.net/~richardamory.com/id3.html

• 1902 births
• 1968 deaths
• American novelists
• American novelist, 20th-century birth stubs