Sloan was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, the grandson of U.S. Navy officer and Arctic explorer John Wilson Danenhower. Wilson graduated from Harvard University in 1942. He then served in World War II as an officer of the United States Coast Guard, commanding a naval trawler for the Greenland Patrol and an army supply ship in the Pacific Ocean.
After the war, Wilson worked as a reporter for Time-Life. His first book, Voyage to Somewhere, was published in 1947 and was based on his wartime experiences. He also published stories in The New Yorker and worked as a professor at the University of Buffalo, now called the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Wilson published 15 books, including the bestsellers The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955) and A Summer Place (1958), both of which were adapted into feature films. A later novel, A Sense of Values, in which protagonist Nathan Bond is a disenchanted cartoonist involved with adultery and alcoholism, was not well received.[1]InGeorgie Winthrop, a 45-year-old college vice president begins a relationship with the 17-year-old daughter of his childhood love.[2] The novel The Ice Brothers is loosely based on Wilson's experiences in Greenland while serving with the United States Coast Guard. The memoir What Shall We Wear to This Party? recalls his experiences in the Coast Guard during World War II and the changes to his life after the bestseller Gray Flannel was published.[3]
Wilson was an advocate for integrating, funding and improving public schools. He became assistant director of the National Citizens Commission for Public Schools as well as Assistant Director of the 1955–1956 White House Conference on Education.[4]
Wilson suffered from alcoholism throughout his adult life, and Alzheimer's disease toward the end.[4] In addition to novels and magazine articles, he funded himself during his later years by writing commissioned works such as biographies and yacht histories. He was living in Colonial Beach, Virginia at the time of his death.
Wilson was married twice, first to Elise Pickhardt in 1941. They had three children: Rebecca Wilson, David Sloan Wilson, and Lisa. Rebecca is a nurse, David is an evolutionary biologist, and Lisa is an author. His second wife was Betty Stephens, whom he married in 1962. They had one daughter, Jessie.
Wilson's service as an officer in World War II is noted at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.
In the 1970s Wilson and his wife and daughter lived at Dinner Key Marina in Coconut Grove, Florida on a 54 ft (16 m) cruiser, the Pretty Betty.[5]
A copy of one of Wilson's books, Ice Brothers, was used to conceal a bomb by terrorist Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber). Kaczynski sent a parcel to the Lake Forest, Illinois, home of Percy Wood, the president of United Airlines. On June 10, 1980, Wood received the parcel in the mail; it contained a copy of Ice Brothers. When Wood opened the book, a bomb concealed inside exploded, injuring him severely.[6]
