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Patrick Dennis (1921–1976)

Author of Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade

24+ Works 3,358 Members 90 Reviews 13 Favorited

About the Author

Disambiguation Notice:

a.k.a. Edward Everett Tanner, III

Series

Works by Patrick Dennis

Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade (1955) 2,014 copies, 62 reviews
Around the World with Auntie Mame (1958) 543 copies, 11 reviews
Little Me (1961) 245 copies, 3 reviews
The Joyous Season (1965) 144 copies, 5 reviews
Genius (2012) 104 copies, 2 reviews
Guestward Ho! (1956) 47 copies, 2 reviews
How Firm a Foundation (1969) 33 copies, 1 review
Tony (1966) 31 copies
The Pink Hotel (1957) 28 copies
Paradise (1971) 25 copies, 1 review
3-D (1977) 23 copies
Love and Mrs. Sargent (1961) 19 copies

Associated Works

Auntie Mame [1958 film] (1958) — Original Novel — 186 copies, 1 review
Auntie Mame: A Play (1960) — Original novel — 119 copies, 2 reviews
Chances Are [1989 film] (1989) — Actor — 56 copies, 2 reviews
Reading for Pleasure (2023) — Contributor — 55 copies
Mame [1974 film] (1974) — Original novel — 48 copies
Mame: Original 1966 Broadway Cast Recording (1966) — Original story — 23 copies, 1 review
Joe [1970 film] (1970) — Actor — 7 copies, 1 review

Tagged

20th century (36) American (21) American literature (54) aunts (19) biography (36) camp (29) classics (21) comedy (25) coming of age (12) ebook (13) family (23) fiction (514) gay (13) Gay men > Fiction (20) general fiction (13) humor (299) literature (23) memoir (36) narrativa (21) New York (41) New York City (29) non-fiction (13) novel (74) Patrick Dennis (17) read (30) satire (13) to-read (104) travel (13) unread (16) USA (26)

Common Knowledge

Canonical name
Dennis, Patrick
Legal name
Tanner, Edward Everett, III
Other names
Rowans, Virginia
Birthdate
1921-05-18
Date of death
1976-11-06
Gender
male
Education
Evanston Township High School, Evanston, Illinois, USA
Occupations
butler
author
Organizations
American Field Service (WWII)
Relationships
Stickney, Louise (wife)
Tanner, Michael (son)
Short biography
Patrick Dennis (1921-1976) was the author of sixteen books including the enormously popular bestselling camp classic “Auntie Mame”. He was born Edward Everett Tanner III in Evanston, Illinois in 1921. He began using his nom de plume when he attended Evanston High. Though he struggled with his homosexual urges his entire life, in 1948 he married Louise Stickney and fathered two children.

After writing two novels under a pseudonym, in 1955 Dennis exploded onto the literary scene with “Auntie Mame” – a comic masterpiece that spent 112 weeks on the bestseller list. Written in a mere 90 days, the novel is the witty tale of Chicago born ‘Patrick Dennis' recalling his experiences growing up as the ward of his free-spirited aunt. The advent of ‘Mame Dennis' on popular culture helped him to almost single-handedly introduce mainstream America to high camp. The novel spawned a sequel and was adapted for stage and screen and later revamped as a musical. In 1956, with “Auntie Mame”; “The Loving Couple: His (and Her) Story”; and “Guestward, Ho!” all in release, Patrick Dennis became the first writer to have three books on the New York Times bestseller list simultaneously.

Soon Dennis became a fixture in the New York gay scene. He wrote sixteen books in all, but by the early 1970s they had all gone out of print. Ironically, not unlike the legendary ‘Auntie Mame' he created, Dennis squandered a fortune in royalties with lavish living. Undaunted, he chose to reinvent himself. Using his real name, Edward Tanner, he found employment as a domestic, even working for a while in Chicago as a butler to McDonald's founder, Ray Kroc. His employers had no idea the man on their staff was really world famous author Patrick Dennis.

In the mid-1970s Dennis grew ill, and in 1976, the man who brought ‘Mame Dennis Burnside' to life died from pancreatic cancer at age 55.
Cause of death
pancreatic cancer
Nationality
USA
Birthplace
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Places of residence
Evanston, Illinois, USA
Place of death
New York, New York, USA
Burial location
James Episcopal Church Graveyard, St. James, Smithtown, Suffolk, New York, USA
Map Location
USA
Disambiguation notice
a.k.a. Edward Everett Tanner, III
Associated Place (for map)
USA

Members

Reviews

94 reviews
Subtitle: An Irreverent Escapade

Oh, what an absolute delight! I love Mame … she’s outrageous, convivial, adventurous, kind, a bon vivant, prone to exaggeration, unable to resist, unabashedly lacking in marketable skills, and yet full of confidence. She’s also completely and utterly devoted to her nephew, Patrick, who’s been orphaned and placed in her care at the tender age of nine. Oh, what an education he gets!

What started as a few essays in periodicals has been framed into this show more novel “memoir.” It’s funny and tender, horrifying and enthralling. I was appalled at some of Mame’s escapades, but enthralled by others, and always I was in her corner, cheering her on.

I’ve wanted to read this for years, ever since I had seen the marvelous movie starring Rosalind Russell, and I admit to picturing her throughout the novel.
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Sparklingly witty, irreverently satirical, this 1955 novel manages to remain timelessly relevant in its cutting send-up of conformity, conservatism, and cupidity. Mame Dennis first swam into my ken during the long, hot, boring summer of 1973, an anodyne to the astoundingly dreary Watergate hearings on TV. I complained to my mother about the absence of entertainment, and she snorted mightily: "How can *anyone* be bored in this house full of books? Here, read this," and she handed me "Auntie show more Mame."

What can I say? Mother's always right. I love love loved this book then, and on re-reading it now 37 years later, I love it just as much...maybe more, I know more of how adult Mame felt being handed a kid to raise than I did at fourteen.

It's been perfect for me to read in the Auntie-adjustment period, because it's not a novel, it's a series of interconnected short stories that share a frame. I can snag a quick hit before the next issue arises that requires me to pay attention. It's flat-out hilarious, this cocktail culture send-up; Dennis, a pseudonym for the gay (literally) dawg E.E. Tanner III, was Uncle Mame (title of his biogrpahy, BTW) and had an Aunt Marion who was the model for a lot of Mame's characteristics. Dennis hated confromity, he loathed insincerity, he was revolted by Babbittry, and he skewered his targets on brightly colored little cocktail toothpicks with the hula-themed hors d'ouevre.

Mame and Patrick are limousine liberals, rich people who have it in themselves to understand and work to ameliorate the burdens of those not like themsleves. In many ways, I think Teddy Kennedy would identify with Mame and Patrick. I think they're still, to this good day, sterling examples to the well-to-do. The stories here are about Patrick in larval and chrysalis stages, before Mame effects the rowdy transition of her little love into the oddly spotted butterfly he becomes. It's delightful to trot along behind Patrick as he tells us of his life with his Most Unforgettable Character. (Anyone old enough to remember those articles in Reader's Digest is old enough to follow the archaic references in this book.)

Oh, and those references...there are lots of them, and the book's genesis in the Fifties means they're even older still. A working knowledge of the 1930s and the haute couture of the day is helpful, but not necessary. Just realize that each name dropped is hoity-toity, and move on...or use this Interweb thingie to learn *a lot* about the status symbols of a bygone era. Either way, you won't miss the fun and the funny that whizzes around behind you to tickle your ribs and neck mercilessly, making you laugh harder than you'll remember laughing in a very long time.

Read it and weep...from laughter!
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http://leavesandpages.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/review-the-joyous-season-by-patri...

Ignore the candy cane on the dust jacket, and the internet references you may find to this being a “holiday book.” No, no, no. It is not. Christmas features, but only incidentally. The scope is much broader than that!

“Patrick Dennis,” you’ll possibly be saying to yourself. “Sounds familiar, but ???”

Auntie Mame, darlings!

Ten years after penning his highly successful social satire starring the show more exuberant Mame and her sedate nephew Patrick, author Edward Tanner - writing under the pseudonym Patrick Dennis – came up with this little comedic gem. I wasn’t sure what to expect, having only ever previously experienced Mame, but The Joyous Season was absolutely marvelous, and better than I had anticipated. Such a treat!

10-year-old Kerrington - Kerry – is our narrator. He lives in a posh New York apartment with his 6-year-old sister Melissa – Missy – and his parents, both members of the New York “aristocracy”, though his mother’s family is higher up in the strata, and his maternal grandmother never lets his father forget that for a moment. Dad’s a successful architect, and Mom is most definitely one of the ladies-who-lunch, leaving much of the care of her two children to the fifth member of the menage, Lulu.


"Lulu’s our nurse. We need a nurse like we need a case of mumps. I mean, hell, I’m ten and eleven twelfths years old and I’ve already smoked over two packs of Tareytons. (They’ve got that extra charcoal filter, you know, for cancer.) Even old Missy can take a bath and get dressed and wipe herself without any help, which is pretty good for six, I guess. But like Mom always said, we can’t go around New York alone because of kidnappers and Dirty Old Men (especially on East Eighty-sixth Street) and types like that. So Lulu drags us across town every day, me to St. Barnaby’s – although she turns me loose at the stationery store so the kids won’t think I’m being hauled around by a nurse at my age – and Missy two blocks further (or farther, whichever it is) to Miss Farthingale’s. Except for that, Lulu hasn’t got much to do except see we go to bed and get up and eat and don’t fight.

"Lulu’s quite a character. She’s colored and elderly and has been with us ever since I was born. She’s kind of old fashioned and hates the N.A.A.C.P. and says she doesn’t want to integrate with any white people except Missy and me and that’s only because she gets paid to. Lulu says that after us she needs a rest, if we don’t kill her first, and she wants to retire and move back down South. Gadzeeks, South! I mean I don’t even like Palm Beach, which is supposed to be the next thing to heaven… Give me New York City and keep the rest. Crazy! Anyhow, Lulu tells us real interesting stories and knows every kind of poker there is – except strip – and always lets us have some of her beer and hates Gran’s place in East Haddock almost worse than we do. I mean Lulu is great, even if we don’t need a nurse."

Oh – I forgot one more family member. There’s also Maxl, the incontinent, prone-to-carsickness, full-of-mild-vice dachshund. His escapades run in harmony to the ups and downs of Kerry’s and Missy’s lives, providing a kind of sub fusc harmony to the human drama of this gloriously dramatic tale.

So as the story opens, Kerry, Missy, Lulu and Maxl are reluctantly heading out the door to Gran’s place in East Haddock. Gran is Mom’s mother, and oh boy, is she ever a snooty piece of work! And she’s more or less the reason for the whole darned situation Kerry and Missy are in. To condense greatly, on Christmas morning there was a bit of a situation with Mom and Daddy which saw several kinds of shots fired, much broken glass, some physical violence and some exceedingly blunt words spoken. As a result, Kerr and Missy are poised to become Children of Divorce, much to the delight of meddling Gran. Everyone (except Gran, who openly gloats about the come-uppance of her despised soon-to-be-ex son-in-law) has decided to be Very Civilized About It All, and Not To Make The Children Suffer, but suffering they are indeed, though not perhaps in the way one would expect.

Kerry and Missy, despite all of the adult antics going on in their world, are the epitome of well-adjusted, though no one but Lulu seems to quite get that, and Kerry’s knowing-naive narrative exposes the follies of the grown ups, and New York upper crust society at large, to our appreciative eyes.

Mom is suddenly being courted by her own divorce lawyer, the social-climbing Sam Reynolds, while Daddy (a successful and well-heeled architect) is pounced on by the predatory Dorian Glen, a self-invented fashion magazine editor. This gives much glorious scope for satirical commentary, and Kerry is well up to it. His descriptive passages are true works of art, and I found myself wearing a perpetual smile as I willingly gave myself up to the contrivances of the complicated plot.

For example, as this is New York in the 1960s, psychoanalysis is all the rage, and Kerry finds himself saddled with three hours a week with Dr. Epston. The adults in his life just want to ensure that he is coping well, and they are sure that he needs “fixing”, which if nothing else gives Patrick Dennis via Kerry an opportunity to get in some juicy digs at the world of the well-paid New York shrinks.


"Dr. Epston’s consulting room is small and dim with a couch to lie on; two easy chairs; Kleenex, for crying into, I guess; a desk and a bookshelf with about a million copies of Tensions in the Metropolitan Adolescent by I. Lorenz Epston. I guess it wasn’t exactly what they call a best seller, but he’s getting rid of the supply bit by bit by making each patient’s family buy a copy (at ten bucks a throw). There are also some pictures on the wall that look like Missy painted them and a framed photograph of Dr. Epston’s three daughters. One is in the upper school at Dalton, one goes to Rudolf Steiner and the littlest one is in the School for Nursery Years – if that gives you some idea of what kind of kids he’s got. They also look like Eskimos. In fact, Dr. Epston’s first question was always, “What are you thinking about right now?” And my answer was always “Eskimos.” But when he’d ask me why, I just couldn’t tell him, because even if he is kind of a boob, I didn’t want to hurt the poor guy’s feelings. So I’d hem and haw and talk about igloos and blubber and wasn’t it interesting that the French spelled Eskimos Esquimaux and like that. So I always got kind of a demerit for being what Dr. Epston called “evasive” (when I was only trying to be polite) and at the end of the first week Mom sent off to Wakefield-Young Books for copies of Nanook of the North and Inyuk and some other suitable reading about the North Pole, when I didn’t care much one way or another.

"The first day Dr. Epston made me lie down on the couch and darned if I didn’t drop right off to sleep while he was droning away about trusting him and telling him everything that came into my mind, no matter what. After he woke me up he kept asking me what I was trying to escape from and he wouldn’t believe me when I told him I’d stayed up late the night before watching “The Nurses” (it was all about this dope fiend) and it would have rude to say that also he was kind of a bore. But after that he let me sit up straight in a chair."

And so on, and so on. Kerry certainly does not suffer from lack of things to say; his self-confessed verbosity is what makes this satire such a delight. He’s a truly nice kid, for all the knowingness and the cynical tone he tries to maintain, and his relationship with the volatile Missy is just plain sweet, though they swap sibling-appropriate verbal digs and occasional blows.

Missy is a glorious character in her own right, and it would take me pages and pages to do her proper justice, so I’m not going to even try.

If you liked Auntie Mame, I’ll guarantee that you’ll love The Joyous Season. Highly recommended.
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½
The Joyous Season (1964) by Patrick Dennis. If you haven’t read this, or any of the late Mr. Dennis’s work, drop what you’re doing and get something from his catalog. The most famous tale is “Auntie Mame” but anything he wrote is good.
This is a story that evokes the New York of the early 960s. You can almost see Doris Day, Rock Hudson and Tony Randall wining and dining in the background. While he may not have set out to create a time capsule of the era, Mr. Dennis did so with a show more vengeance.
The book is set over the course of a divorce between the parents of 10 year-old Kerry (our narrator) and his six year old going on forty sister, Missy. They live n a splendid suite of apartments in a tony section of the city. Mom and dad are both from money and he is also an architect, and they do love each other. But they have family and those interlopers manage to get in the way of happiness. His mother, Ga-Ga, is a clone of Auntie Mame with far less time, or knowledge, of children. Her mother, Gran, acts like a Victorian dowager who is on the precipice of complete finical ruin (far from the truth) and still has time to manage her daughter’s life.
Hilarious, satirical, reflecting on the past of Mr. Dennis’s own life and that of those close to him, this is a wonderful book that will have tears running and sides aching from laughter. Missy’s insights are so to the bone they take more than a moment or two to regroup from.
And yes, the character H.A., Kerry’s uncle that still lives with Gran, is a Horses A—,
Everyone gets what they deserve despite the train wreck of the weddings that cap the story. Do yourself a favor, read this book and then pass it on to your friends. Sure to please.
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Statistics

Works
24
Also by
7
Members
3,358
Popularity
#7,598
Rating
4.0
Reviews
90
ISBNs
95
Languages
7
Favorited
13

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