Born in Norwalk, Connecticut, Wilson graduated from Harvard University in 1942. He served in World War II, serving in the United States Coast Guard, commanding a naval trawler on the Greenland patrol and an army supply ship in the Pacific Ocean.

After the war, Wilson worked as a reporter for Time-Life. His first book, Voyage to Somewhere, was published in 1947 and drew on his wartime experiences. He also published stories in The New Yorker, and worked as a college professor at University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.

Wilson wrote fifteen books, including the best-sellers The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955) and A Summer Place (1958), both of which were adapted into motion pictures. In his next novel, A Sense of Values, protagonist Nathan Bond was a disenchanted cartoonist caught up in adultery and alcoholism; it was not well received. In Georgie Winthrop, an over-the-hill 45-year-old college vice president takes up with the bohemian 17-year-old daughter of his childhood love. The novel The Ice Brothers is loosely based on Wilson's experiences in Greenland while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard. The memoir What Shall We Wear to This Party? recalls his experiences in the Coast Guard during World War II and the changes to his life after the bestseller Gray Flannel was published.

Wilson was an advocate for integrating, funding and improving public schools, and became assistant director of the National Citizens Commission for Public Schools as well as assistant director of the 1955-56 White House Conference on Education.

He suffered from alcoholism throughout his life, and Alzheimer's disease towards the end. In addition to novels and magazine articles, he supported himself in his later years by writing commissioned works such as biographies and yacht histories. He was living in Colonial Beach, Virginia at the time of his death.

Wilson was married twice, first to Elise Pickhardt in 1941, then to Betty Stephens in 1962. He had four children. His daughter Lisa is a published author, and his son David Sloan Wilson is an evolutionary biologist. His daughter Rebecca is a nurse.

A copy of one of Wilson's books, Ice Brothers, was used to conceal a bomb by the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. On June 10, 1980 the president of United Airlines, Percy Wood, received a parcel in the mail at his home in Lake Forest, Illinois, which contained a copy. When he opened the book, a bomb concealed inside exploded, severely injuring him.

Novels

• Voyage to Somewhere (1947)
• The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955)
• A Summer Place (1958)
• A Sense of Values (1961)
• Georgie Winthrop (1963)
• Janus Island (1967)
• Away from It All (1970)
• All the Best People (1971)
• Small Town (1978)
• Ice Brothers(1979)
• Greatest Crime (1980)
• Pacific Interlude (1982)
• Man in the Gray Flannel Suit II (1984)

Short Fiction

• "The Best and Most Powerful Machines" (Harper's Magazine, June 1946)
• "The Octopus" (The New Yorker, June 1946)
• "The Wonderful Plans" (The New Yorker, December 1946)
• "Check for $90,000" (The New Yorker, February 1947)
• "Bearer of Bad Tidings" (The New Yorker, March 1947)
• "Housewarming" (The New Yorker, May 1947)
• "A Very Old Man" (The New Yorker, September 1947)
• "Drunk on the Train" (The New Yorker, January 1948)
• "The Reunion" (The New Yorker, March 1948)
• "Bygones" (The New Yorker, June 1949)
• "The Alarm Clock" (The New Yorker, February 1951)
• "The Powder Keg" (The New Yorker, October 1951)
• "The Black Mollies" (Harper's Magazine, December 1951)
• "A Sword for my Children" (The New Yorker, December 1951)
• "A Letter of Admonition" (The New Yorker, December 1951)
• "Citation" (The New Yorker, February 1952)
• "The Cook and the Book" (The New Yorker, April 1952)
• "The Disappearance" (The New Yorker, May 1952)
• "The News" (The New Yorker, June 1952)
• "The Regatta" (The New Yorker, June 1952)
• "A Friendship Sloop" (The New Yorker, April 1953)
• "Lollapalooza and the Rogers Rock Hotel" (The New Yorker, October 1953)

Poetry

• The Soldiers who Sit (The New Yorker, January 1945)
• Cup and Lip (The New Yorker, March 1946)

Nonfiction

• Public Schools Are Better Than You Think (Harper's Mazine, September 1955)
• It's Time to Close Our Carnival (Life, March 24, 1958)
• The American Way of Birth (Harper's Magazine, July 1964)
• The Heirs of Captain Slocum: Alone At Sea (Harper's Magazine, August 1980)
• What Shall We Wear to This Party?: The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Twenty Years Before And After (1976)