John Horne Burns (1916-1953) attended Andover and Harvard and then served in military intelligence during World War II. He wrote two more novels after The Gallery—Lucifer With a Book and A Cry of Children—but both met with a cold critical reception. He drank himself to death in Florence while still in his thirties.
Paul Fussell (1924–2012) was the author of many books on war and twentieth-century culture, including The Great War and Modern Memory, which won the National Book Award. His memoir Doing Battle: The Making of a Skeptic chronicles the time he spent fighting with the 103rd infantry division in World War II.