De Vries was born in
Chicago,
Illinois, in 1910. He was educated in Dutch
Christian Reformed Church schools, graduating from
Calvin College in
Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1931. He also studied at
Northwestern University. He supported himself with a number of different jobs, including those of
vending machine operator, toffee-apple salesman, radio actor in the 1930s, and editor for
Poetry magazine from 1938 to 1944. He joined the staff of
The New Yorker magazine at the insistence of
James Thurber and worked there from 1944 to 1987, writing stories and touching up cartoon captions. A prolific writer, De Vries wrote short stories, reviews, poetry, essays, a play, novellas, and twenty-five novels. Films made from De Vries's novels include
The Tunnel of Love (1958), which also was a successful
Broadway play;
How Do I Love Thee? (1970, based on
Let Me Count the Ways); ''
Pete 'n' Tillie (1972, based on Witch’s Milk
); and Reuben, Reuben (1983), which also inspired a Broadway play, Spofford
. Earlier, in 1952, De Vries also contributed to the writing of the Broadway revue New Faces of 1952''. Although he enjoyed success for five decades, all his novels were out of print by the time of his death.
James Bratt describes De Vries as "a secular
Jeremiah, a renegade
CRC missionary to the smart set." ==Personal life==