New England Diary

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The anguish of 'The Organization Man'

  See Paul Zahl's wonderful take on Sloan Wilson and his "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit'' (1955),  that memorable but  frequently misdescribed novel about what William H. Whyte called the corporate "Organization Man''.

The Reverend Mr. Zahl (he is an Episcopal minister) headlined  his posting "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Suburbia''.

The hero of the novel,  the polite and quiet Tom Rath, is  a daily Westport-New York commuter on the infamous New Haven Railroad (now the infamous Metro North) in shock from what happened to him in World War II.