James Purdy. (Photo: Bebeto Matthews/AP)
The latest issue of Hyperion: On the future of aesthetics is devoted to American novelist James Purdy, who died at the age of 94 in March of 2009. Purdy was a unique figure who operated on the margins of American literature, in his later years living as a recluse in Brooklyn after having published such novels as Malcolm (1959, later adapted into a play by Edward Albee) and Cabot Wright Begins (1965, one of the major achievements of the black humor genre of the 1950s and 1960s). Purdy was also a prolific dramatist; his plays were collected and published by Ivan R. Dee in 2009.
The issue includes new essays on Purdy’s work by Rainer Hanshe, Dr. Richard Canning and Christopher Lane, as well as a rare 1997 interview with the author conducted by Marie-Claude Profit. The entire issue can be found here; you can also find a brief description of Purdy’s life and career in Christopher Hawtree’s Guardian obituary for Purdy here, in which Hawtree identifies Purdy as a precursor to David Lynch.
CORRECTION (8 April 2011) : Hyperion editor Rainer Hanshe offers a correction to my original post here.
He certainly is unique. I published a couple of stories of Purdy’s in an early edition of Masthead. If you’re interested, they’re at here and here.
Thanks, Alison! I’m sure the Hyperion crew will appreciate the pointers.
I know of those, but I didn’t know that you were involved with Masthead, Alison. I was not aware of the stories being available online though so we’ll include links to both. “Brawith” is particularly exceptional, one of Purdy’s strangest and most haunting works. I heard him read it aloud once-a mesmerizing experience.
Founder and editor, I am/was (Masthead’s in ambiguous retirement). Purdy’s one of the very few writers who has made me feel real horror. I don’t think his work will be lost, but he sure deserves to be better known.
I don’t think it will either, but here in America he suffers from a certain degree of obscurity (reasons for which I offer a hypothesis in my intro to the issue). The fact that nearly all of his books are oop, including the five that Carroll & Graf reprinted in 2005, is problematic, certainly to him being taught in high schools and universities, but oop volumes are easy enough to locate for the impassioned reader.
A slight correction, George–the current issue of Hyperion is a special issue ON Purdy and it is dedicated to the memory of Jan Erik Bouman, a friend and supportor of his. Bouman published (and printed) private editions of Purdy’s work, including short stories, poems, and plays. Thank you for the announcement.
We’ll be publishing the pdf of the entire issue soon; for now, pdfs of each individual essay are available on the Nietzsche Circle web site under the Hyperion tab.
What an astonishing story Brawith is. I have not heard Purdy’s name before today. I’m going to read more of him. Thanks for this, George.