ALIAS S.S. VAN DINE

Intriguing if ultimately somewhat disappointing: A full biography (the first, apparently) of nasty, elegant, tortured Willard Huntington Wright (1887-1939)—magazine editor, art critic, and, as ``S.S. Van Dine,'' the author of the phenomenally successful, now nearly forgotten Philo Vance mysteries. Loughery, art critic of The Hudson Review, begins, effectively, with Wright's final, unhappy days: the Philo Vance bubble already burst, his lavish lifestyle in disarray. Next, bewilderingly, the narrative flashes back not to Wright's beginnings but to his brief stint (1913-14) as editor of The Smart Set—where his daring taste soon got him into trouble. Only then does Loughery make a proper start: Virginia childhood with indulgent, hotel-owning parents and an equally precocious younger brother (artist Stanton); spotty studies at Harvard and impetuous, unfortunate marriage at 19; acerbic book-review work in California, with Mencken as model. After The Smart Set debacle came years of ill-rewarded labor as an eloquent champion of modern art, particularly the ``synchronism'' of brother Stanton Macdonald- Wright. A failure in N.Y.C, Wright became a 1920's scrounger in Hollywood, writing for movie-mags—while wrestling with drug addiction and domestic turmoil. (He was a misogynistic womanizer as well as a racist.) Finally, in 1924, this bitter aesthete decided to sell out with a vengeance and came up with Philo Vance, a ``fantasy projection'' of himself: art connoisseur, aristocrat, amateur detective—and the first American sleuth to rival the sophistication and popularity of the British mystery greats. However, by 1933, the Van Dine novels had become ``a dreary, desperate, mortifying labor for cash.'' Despite the clumsy start, an unlikable subject, and insufficient psychological depth: curious, literate life-history, with sporadic illumination of American culture (pop and otherwise) in the 1910-40 period. (Eight-page photo insert—not seen.)