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The Literary Brat Pack Really Deserved a Much Better Name
They defined literature for a generation and beyond
Chances are good that you’ve heard of the Rat Pack, the ultra-cool crew of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Joey Bishop, and a few others that ruled Las Vegas in the 1960s and gave us the original Ocean’s Eleven film from 1960 that was little more than two hours of them being cool onscreen. You have also likely heard of the derogatorily named Brat Pack that was made up of 1980s film stars like Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and a few whose names escape me at the moment.
With both the Rat Pack and the Brat Pack, the member were famous, instantly recognizable film or music stars. There was another young crew from that 80s era you may not know, mainly because authors rarely gain the notoriety of other types of artists. That’s unfortunate, because these writers were some of the finest of the past half century, and certainly wrote books you’ll recognize.
Writers are by nature solitary creatures. Paradoxically, some of the best work is produced when authors interact with each other at least socially. A few times this happened come immediately to mind: the Bloomsbury Group in England in the early part of the 20th century (Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, John Maynard…
