Facts:   - death date: 22 june 1997    - spouse: susan jenkins esther rosenberg mary james      - children: gwilym slater brown rachel brown    - birth date: 13 november 1896    - name: william slater brown    - death place: rockport , massachusetts    - birth place: webster , massachusetts    - occupation: novelist , biographer and translator   Based on these bullet points, write a short biography describing the life of william slater brown .
Answer:
william slater brown -lrb- november 13 , 1896 -- june 22 , 1997 -rrb- was an american novelist , biographer , and translator of french literature .most notably , he was a friend of the poet e. e. cummings and is best known as the character `` b. '' in cumming 's 1922 memoir/novel `` the enormous room '' .his books , published under the name slater brown , include the novel `` the burning wheel '' -lrb- 1943 -rrb- ; `` ethan allen and the green mountain boys '' -lrb- 1956 -rrb- , a biography for children ; and `` the heyday of spiritualism '' -lrb- 1970 -rrb- , a study of the 19th-century interest in parapsychology and the occult .