{{short description|20th century American writer}}
'''Leane Zugsmith''' (January 18, 1903 – October 13, 1969) was an American novelist and short story writer who frequently wrote about the economically disadvantaged and the shortcomings of capitalism.<ref name="Antler">{{cite book |first=Joyce |last=Antler |title=America and I: Short Stories by American Jewish Women Writers |publisher=Beacon Press |year=1990 |pages=8–9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WvpZAAAAMAAJ&q=%22leane+zugsmith%22 |isbn=978-0807036075 |accessdate=April 25, 2012}}</ref><ref name=wald>{{cite book |first=Alan M. |last=Wald |authorlink=Alan M. Wald|title=Writing from the Left: New Essays on Radical Culture and Politics |publisher=Verso Books |year=1994 |page=[https://archive.org/details/writingfromleftn0000wald/page/78 78] |url=https://archive.org/details/writingfromleftn0000wald |url-access=registration |quote=leane zugsmith. |isbn=978-1859849064 |accessdate=April 25, 2012}}</ref>
==Biography== Zugsmith was born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 18, 1903, to German Jewish parents Albert Zugsmith and Gertrude Appel. Her mother attempted suicide several times and the couple finally divorced.<ref name="Ravitz">{{cite book |first=Abe C. |last=Ravitz |title=Leane Zugsmith: Thunder on the Left |publisher=International Publishers |year=1992 |isbn=978-0717807024 |url=https://archive.org/details/leanezugsmiththu0000ravi |url-access=registration |quote=leane zugsmith. |accessdate=April 25, 2012}}</ref> Zugsmith spent her early childhood in Atlantic City, New Jersey; she later attended high school both in Atlantic City and Louisville, the home of her maternal grandparents.<ref name="Ravitz" />
Zugsmith attended Goucher College in Towson, Maryland for her freshman year and then the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia for her sophomore year. However, she only wanted to take creative writing courses. In 1924, she abandoned college and enrolled in a writing course at Columbia University in New York City. Despite her father's pleading to return to Atlantic City, she got a job at Smith and Street publishers as an editor for their detective and western magazines. She soon moved on to writing advertising and publicity copy, first for ''Putnam's Magazine'' and then Boni & Liveright.<ref name="Ravitz" /> At this time she was writing and reading other authors, such as Émile Zola, Walt Whitman, and Leo Tolstoy. During this period, Zugsmith spent a year in year, becoming engaged during that time to a French man. However, her father successfully persuaded her not to marry him.<ref name="Ravitz" />
In 1928, Zugsmith published her first novel, ''All Victories Are Alike.'' A story of an idealistic young journalist who becomes a jaded member of New York intellectual society. The book received good reviews and moderate sales, though Zugsmith said she was embarrassed by it.<ref name="Ravitz" /> She published her second novel, ''Goodbye and Tomorrow'', in 1931. It is about one day in the life of a wealth society woman in New York City, an idea that Zugsmith said she borrowed from Virginia Woof.<ref name="Ravitz" />
She and playwright Carl Randau formed a salon, where she entertained guests such as Lillian Hellman, Dashiell Hammett, Heywood Broun, and Louis Kronenberger. She married Randau in 1940.<ref name="Ravitz" /><ref name="hammett">{{cite book |authorlink=Dashiell Hammett |first=Dashiell |last=Hammett |title=Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett |publisher= Counterpoint |year=2002 |page=268 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IxrtoE0ByisC&q=%22leane+zugsmith%22&pg=PA268 |isbn=978-1582430812 |accessdate=April 25, 2012}}</ref> She later moved to small-town New England.<ref name="Ravitz" />
She wrote novels and short stories.<ref name=riess>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e4jnk4vVdpUC&q=%22leane+zugsmith%22&pg=PA656 |first=Curt |last=Riess |title=They Were There: The Story of World War II and How it Came About |publisher=Ayer Co Pub |year=1944 |page=656 |isbn=978-0836920291 |accessdate=April 25, 2012}}</ref> ''The Summer Soldier'' is about a civil rights committee that investigates allegations of violence against workers in a southern town.
American Naturalist writer Theodore Dreiser had a copy of ''Never Enough'' in his library.<ref name=dreiser>{{cite web |url=http://www.library.upenn.edu/collections/rbm/dreiser/library/z.html |first=Roark |last=Mulligan |title=Theodore Dreiser's Private Library |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Libraries |accessdate=April 25, 2012}}</ref>
Her younger brother, Albert Zugsmith, was an American film producer, film director and screenwriter who specialized in low-budget exploitation films through the 1950s and 1960s.
==Bibliography== *''All Victories Are Alike'' (1929) *''Goodbye and Tomorrow'' (1931) *''Never Enough: A Novel'' (1932) *''The Reckoning'' (1934) *''A Time to Remember'' (1936) *''Home is Where You Hang Your Childhood and Other Stories'' (1937) *''L is for labor: A glossary of labor terms'' (1937) *''The Summer Soldier'' (1938) *''Hard times with easy payments: Fifteen short stories from "P M "'' (1941) *''The Setting Sun of Japan'' (1942, with husband Carl Randau) *''The Visitor'' (1946, with husband Carl Randau)
==External links== {{Wikiquote}} *[https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/leane-zugsmith Stories for ''The New Yorker'']
==References== {{reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zugsmith, Leane}} Category:1903 births Category:1969 deaths Category:20th-century American novelists Category:American women short story writers Category:Jewish American novelists Category:Writers from Louisville, Kentucky Category:Writers from New York City Category:20th-century American women novelists Category:20th-century American short story writers Category:Novelists from New York (state) Category:Novelists from Kentucky Category:20th-century American Jews Category:Goucher College alumni Category:University of Pennsylvania alumni Category:Columbia University alumni