That Cornell Woolrich led a very reclusive and reserved life is well known. Until now, however, most of the information we had was taken from Francis M. Nevins Jr., Cornell Woolrich’s biography, First You Dream, Then You Die (Mysterious Press, 1988) and other articles in Mystery*File, in which Cornell Woolrich was characterized as a self-hating gay man who mistreated women and was far too close to his mother. However, the truth is much more complicated, as Curtis Evans suggests in his article Do People Really Know What They Think They Know About Cornell Woolrich? (Crime Reads, January 10, 2022).
It’s seemed important to me to make this clarification, since I wrote in my previous posts about Woolrich, taking for granted an opinion which is now being challenged.
A Crime is Afoot 