Overview

The Western Shore (1925) is a novel by Clarkson Crane. Written while the author was living in a cramped Paris apartment, The Western Shore appeared at an exciting time of literary experimentation and achievement among American expatriates in Europe. Condemned for its realistic portrayal of campus life, featuring homosexual characters and sharp critiques of government and academic institutions, The Western Shore proved a costly gamble for Crane's literary career. Although he would publish several more novels throughout his lifetime, Crane never achieved the recognition he deserved as a pioneering LGBTQ figure in American literature. Most novels of American college life focus on the nostalgia of the campus experience, the parties, friendships, and romances which accumulate to shape and change young lives, for better and for worse. In The Western Shore, Clarkson Crane refuses to look back on his undergraduate days with rose-tinted glasses, instead...