The faceless figure on the dust jacket of Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is apparently supposed to imply Everyman. The title of the novel and the publicity that preceded its publication seem to insist that Tom Rath, the novel's hero, is universal, at least to the minimal extent that he represents the young veterans struggling suavely to make their mark in the world of Madison Avenue. Briefly, the plot is this: Tom Rath, the assistant to the director of the Schanenhauser Founda...

As calm and serene a garb as a man can wear is the standard gray flannel suit of commerce, a habiliment supposed to betoken solidity of character tastefully touched with quiet nonchalance. Calmness and serenity, however, frantically elude Tom Rath … [the title character of "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit"], and his inward solidity of character peeps forth, in quite pat fashion, only at the end of the narrative. Rath killed seventeen men as a paratrooper in action in World War II. In R...

Without trying to be sociological or symbolical, Mr. Wilson has got more of the late 'forties and early 'fifties into ["The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit"] than any other writer I know of; he has captured something of the unease of the time, its neurotic worry and speed and pressure. Yet Mr. Wilson is never portentous nor grimly profound; he writes fiction, not a Ph.D. thesis, and he has wit…. The story concerns a not so very young couple and in particular the husband...

Back in the 1950's Sloan Wilson wrote a novel, "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit," that caught the essence of what was then becoming known as the rat race. It was the story of a chronic worrier, Tom Rath, whose desire to be himself could not be reconciled with his ghostwriter's trade…. The novel had a happy conclusion. Tom inherited grandma's big house, and his wife, Betsy, forgave his wartime infidelity. But now, a quarter-century later, we learn in a sequel [�...

It is a surprise to discover … unflinching honesty in Sloan Wilson's What Shall We Wear to This Party? The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit Twenty Years Before & After…. Wilson's book is virtually swamped in washes of the sentimentality that the author knows is a problem he has never been able to solve. Still, he does recognize his deficiencies, and it is a rare autobiography that puts pride second to truth. That sly, pathetic best foot nearly always slips forward…. [Wilso...