Wilfrid Sheed

Wilfrid Sheed (born December 27, 1930, London, England—died January 19, 2011, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, U.S.) was an American author of essays, biographies, and other nonfiction works and of satirical fiction that contrasts transient modern values with steadfast traditional values.

Sheed’s parents, authors themselves, founded Sheed & Ward, a leading Roman Catholic publishing firm. The family immigrated to the United States in 1940, and Sheed returned to England to study at the University of Oxford (B.A., 1954; M.A., 1957). In 1959 he began writing film, drama, and book criticism for magazines and newspapers in New York City.

The lives of individuals working in mass media are the subjects of most of Sheed’s comic novels. Journalists battle over the editorial pecking order in Office Politics (1966), whereas compulsive analysis and perfectionism destroy the life of a critic in Max Jamison (1970). A reporter views the moral hypocrisy of a candidate in People Will Always Be Kind (1973).

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Sheed’s other novels included The Hack (1963), Transatlantic Blues (1978), and The Boys of Winter (1987). Among his nonfiction books are Frank and Maisie: A Memoir with Parents (1985), the biographies Muhammad Ali (1975) and Clare Boothe Luce (1982), the essay collections The Good Word & Other Words (1978) and Essays in Disguise (1990), and Baseball and Lesser Sports (1991). In 1995 Sheed published In Love with Daylight: A Memoir of Recovery, about his battle with alcoholism and cancer of the tongue and his disappointment with the professionals who treated him. His last work, the best-selling The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving Cole and a Crew of About Fifty (2007), chronicled the history of American popular music.