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ecame a cultural stereotype inSloan Wilson’s best-selling novelThe Man in the Gray Flannel Suit(1955). Generalized Americanalienation came under the scrutinyof sociologist David Riesman in TheLonely Crowd (1950).Other popular, more or less scientificstudies followed, rangingfrom Vance Packard’s The HiddenPersuaders (1957) and The StatusSeekers (1959) to William Whyte’sThe Organization Man (1956) andC. Wright Mills’s more intellectualformulations — White Collar (1951)and The Power Elite (1956).Economist and academician JohnKenneth Galbraith contributedThe Affluent Society (1958).Most of these works supportedthe 1950s assumptionthat all Americansshared a common lifestyle. Thestudies spoke in general terms,criticizing citizens for losing frontierindividualism and becomingtoo conformist (for example,Riesman and Mills) or advisingpeople to become members of the“New Class” that technology andleisure time created (as seen inGalbraith’s works).The 1950s in literary terms actuallywas a decade of subtle and pervasiveunease. Novels by JohnO’Hara, John Cheever, and JohnUpdike explore the stress lurkingin the shadows of seeming satisfaction.Some of the best work portraysmen who fail in the struggle tosucceed, as in Arthur Miller’sDeath of a Salesman and SaulBellow’s novella Seize theThe 1950s inliterary termsactually was adecade of subtleand pervasiveunease. Novels byJohn O’Hara,John Cheever, andJohn Updikeexplore the stresslurking inthe shadows ofseemingsatisfaction.Day. African-American LorraineHansberry (1930-1965) revealedracism as a continuing undercurrentin her moving 1959 play ARaisin in the Sun, in which a blackfamily encounters a threatening“welcome committee” when it triesto move into a white neighborhood.Some writers went further byfocusing on characters whodropped out of mainstream society,as did J.D. Salinger in The Catcherin the Rye, Ralph Ellison in InvisibleMan, and Jack Kerouac in On theRoad. And in the waning days of thedecade, Philip Roth arrived with aseries of short stories reflecting acertain alienation from his Jewishheritage (Goodbye, Columbus). Hispsychological ruminations providedfodder for fiction, and later autobiography,into the new millennium.The fiction of American-Jewishwriters Bellow, Bernard Malamud,and Isaac Bashevis Singer — amongothers prominent in the 1950s andthe years following — are also worthy,compelling additions to thecompendium of American literature.The output of these threeauthors is most noted for itshumor, ethical concern, and portraitsof Jewish communities in theOld and New Worlds.John O’Hara (1905-1970)Trained as a journalist, JohnO’Hara was a prolific writer ofplays, stories, and novels. He was amaster of careful, telling detail andis best remembered for severalrealistic novels, mostly written inthe 1950s, about outwardly success-101