Writers seldom choose as friends those self-contained characters who are never in trouble, never unhappy or ill, never make mistakes and always count their change when it is handed to them.

She was an accompliCatherine Drinker Bowend violinist who studied for a musical career at the Peabody Institute and the Juilliard School of Music but ultimately decided to become a writer. Bowen did all her own research without hiring research assistants and sometimes took the controversial step of interviewing subjects without taking notes. " She was survived by a daughter Catherine Prince; a son Ezra Bowen the Sports Illustrated and Time-Life writer and editor; and grandsons Ezra D.

She won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1958.