Shaw credited his time in the Navy from 1942 to 1944 as a period of renewed introspection. After his discharge, he entered psychoanalysis and began to withdraw from music in favor of a writing career. His autobiography, "The Trouble With Cinderella: An Outline of Identity", was published in 1952 (with later reprint editions in 1992 and 2001). Revealing downbeat elements of the music business, Shaw explained that "the trouble with Cinderella" is "nobody ever lives happily ever after." He turned to semi-autobiographical fiction with the three short novels in "I Love You, I Hate You, Drop Dead!" (1965, reprinted in 1997), which prompted Terry Southern's comment: "Here is a deeply probing examination of the American marital scene. I flipped over it!" Shaw's short stories, including "Snow White in Harlem", were collected in "The Best of Intentions and Other Stories" (1989). He worked for years on his 1000-page autobiographical novel, "The Education of Albie Snow", but the three-volume work remained unpublished.