William Derry Eastlake possesses a distinctive talent that allows him to combine luminous, lyrical description with satire in coruscating prose. The style of his early work is frequently compared to that of Hemingway, but Eastlake's scintillant art is unmistakably his own. While Eastlake has not been neglected by literary and academic circles, his work has received less critical attention than one would expect for a writer of such high literary caliber.

Eastlake was born in Brooklyn, New York, of English parents, Gordon Opie and Charlotte Derry Eastlake; he was reared in Caldwell, New Jersey. His upbringing was greatly affected by his mother's being committed to a mental institution when he was still an infant. When he attended the Bonnie Brae School in New Jersey, a boys' boarding school that incorporated farming chores into the curriculum, his early difficulties stemming from his "neurotic beginnings" increased. Eastlake recalls his "poor...