Moe's Villa & Other Stories

Moe's Villa & Other Stories PDF Author: James Purdy
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 9780786714179
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The author's first short story collection in ten years introduces twelve new stories, including one about an opera diva whose career is managed by her talking cat and another chronicling the bizarre journey of a man whose obsession with his unfaithful wife leads him into an even stranger obsession over a rare bird. Original.

Moe's Villa & Other Stories

Moe's Villa & Other Stories PDF Author: James Purdy
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 9780786714179
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The author's first short story collection in ten years introduces twelve new stories, including one about an opera diva whose career is managed by her talking cat and another chronicling the bizarre journey of a man whose obsession with his unfaithful wife leads him into an even stranger obsession over a rare bird. Original.

The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy

The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy PDF Author: James Purdy
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0871406691
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 743

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Book Description
Celebrate “an authentic American genius” (Gore Vidal) in James Purdy’s first complete short story collection. The publication of The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy is a literary event that marks the first time all of James Purdy’s short stories—fifty-six in number, including seven drawn from his unpublished archives—have been collected in a single volume. As prolific as he was unclassifiable, James Purdy was considered one of the greatest—and most underappreciated—writers in America in the latter half of the twentieth century. Championed by writers as diverse as Dame Edith Sitwell, Gore Vidal, Paul Bowles, Tennessee Williams, Carl Van Vechten, John Cowper Powys, and Dorothy Parker, Purdy’s vast body of work has heretofore been relegated to the avant-garde fringes of the American literary mainstream. His unique form and variety of style made the Ohio-born Purdy impossible to categorize in standard terms, though his unique, mercurial talent garnered him a following of loyal readers and made him—in the words of Susan Sontag—“one of the half dozen or so living American writers worth taking seriously." Purdy’s journey to recognition came with as much outrage and condemnation as it did lavish praise and lasting admiration. Some early assessments even dismissed his work as that of a disturbed mind, while others acclaimed the very same work as healing and transformative. Purdy's fiction was considered so uniquely unsettling that his first book, Don't Call Me by My Right Name, a collection of short stories all reprinted in this edition, had to be printed privately in the United States in 1956, after first being published in England. Best known for his novels Malcolm, Cabot Wright Begins, Jeremy's Version, and Eustace Chisholm and the Works, Purdy captured an America that was at once highly realistic and deeply symbolic, a landscape filled with social outcasts living in crisis and longing for love, characterized by his dark sense of humor and unflinching eye. Love, disillusionment, the collapse of the family, ecstatic longing, sharp inner pain, and shocking eruptions of violence pervade the lives of his characters in stories that anticipate both "David Lynch and Desperate Housewives" (Guardian). In "Color of Darkness," for example, a lonely child attempts to swallow his father's wedding ring; in "Eventide," the anguish of two sisters over the loss of their sons is deeply felt in the summer heat; and in the gothic horror of "Mr. Evening," a young man is hypnotized and imprisoned by a predatory old woman. These stories and many others, both haunting and hilarious, form a canvas of deep desperation and immanent sympathy, as Purdy narrates "the inexorable progress toward disaster in such a way that it's as satisfying and somehow life-affirming as progress toward a happy ending" (Jonathan Franzen). It may have taken over fifty years, but American culture is finally in sync with James Purdy. As John Waters writes in his introduction, Purdy, far from the fringe, has "been dead center in the black little hearts of provocateur-hungry readers like myself right from the beginning."

James Purdy

James Purdy PDF Author: ASSISTANT TEACHING PROFESSOR MICHAEL. SNYDER
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197609724
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
A definitive biography of a twentieth century gay author whose work has recently been rediscovered and enjoys a cult following. One of the most iconoclastic twentieth-century American novelists, James Purdy penned original and sometimes shocking works about those on the margins of American society, exploring small towns, urban life, failure, alienation, sexuality, and familial relations. In his own life, Purdy was a compelling if eccentric figure, declared an authentic American genius by Gore Vidal. James Purdy: Life of a Contrarian Writer is the first full-length biography of the gay American novelist, story writer, playwright, and poet. Michael Snyder has spent over a decade plumbing the mysteries of Purdy's career and personal life, including interviews with those who knew him. From his roots in northwestern Ohio, Purdy moved to the world of Bohemian artists and jazz musicians in Chicago in the late 1930s and 1940s, travelled in Spain, studied in Mexico, enlisted in the Army Air Corps, worked for the National Security Agency, and taught in Cuba and at a Wisconsin college for nearly a decade. All the while, he aspired to become a writer, but struggled to publish. Only when friends financed the private printing of his work did he find a champion in poet Dame Edith Sitwell, who helped get him published in England, which led to publication in the United States. After moving to New York in 1957, he spent nearly fifty years writing in Brooklyn Heights. Although Purdy's critical reputation peaked in the 1960s and he never enjoyed a bestseller, his often queer and edgy content found a diverse following that included Tennessee Williams, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, Dorothy Parker, Edward Albee, Jonathan Franzen, John Waters, and many LGBTQ readers. Difficult and often contrarian, Purdy sometimes hampered his own career as he sought recognition from a conservative, cliquey New York publishing world. Conveying the potency and influence of Purdy's fierce artistic integrity, vision, and self-definition as a truth-teller, this groundbreaking literary biography recovers the life of a highly talented writer with a persistent cult following.

The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction, 3 Volume Set

The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction, 3 Volume Set PDF Author: Brian W. Shaffer
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405192445
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1581

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Book Description
This Encyclopedia offers an indispensable reference guide to twentieth-century fiction in the English-language. With nearly 500 contributors and over one million words, it is the most comprehensive and authoritative reference guide to twentieth-century fiction in the English language. Contains over 500 entries of 1000-3000 words written in lucid, jargon-free prose, by an international cast of leading scholars Arranged in three volumes covering British and Irish Fiction, American Fiction, and World Fiction, with each volume edited by a leading scholar in the field Entries cover major writers (such as Saul Bellow, Raymond Chandler, John Steinbeck, Virginia Woolf, A.S. Byatt, Samual Beckett, D.H. Lawrence, Zadie Smith, Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul, Nadine Gordimer, Alice Munro, Chinua Achebe, J.M. Coetzee, and Ngûgî Wa Thiong’o) and their key works Examines the genres and sub-genres of fiction in English across the twentieth century (including crime fiction, Sci-Fi, chick lit, the noir novel, and the avant-garde novel) as well as the major movements, debates, and rubrics within the field, such as censorship, globalization, modernist fiction, fiction and the film industry, and the fiction of migration, diaspora, and exile

Gay Fiction Speaks

Gay Fiction Speaks PDF Author: Richard Canning
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231502494
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
Today's most celebrated, prominent, and promising authors of gay fiction in English explore the literary influences and themes of their work in these revealing interviews with Richard Canning. Though the interviews touch upon a wide range of issues—including gay culture, AIDS, politics, art, and activism—what truly distinguishes them is the extent to which Canning encourages the authors to reflect on their writing practices, published work, literary forebears, and their writing peers—gay and straight. Edmund White talks about narrative style and the story behind the cover of A Boy's Own Story. Armistead Maupin discusses his method of writing and how his work has adapted to television. Dennis Cooper thinks about L.A., AIDS, Try, and pop music. Alan Hollinghurst considers structure and point of view in The Folding Star, and why The Swimming-Pool Library is exactly 366 pages long. David Leavitt muses on the identity of the gay reader—and the extent to which that readership defined a tradition. Andrew Holleran wonders how he might have made The Beauty of Men "more forlorn, romantic, lost" by writing in the first person.

Researching the Song

Researching the Song PDF Author: Shirlee Emmons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199882304
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
Singers are faced with a unique challenge among musicians: they must express not just the music, but the lyrics too. To effectively communicate the meaning behind these words, singers must understand the many references embedded in the vast international repertoire of great art songs. They must deal with the meaning of the lyrics, frequently in a language not their own and of a culture unfamiliar to them. From Zelter and Schubert to Rorem and Musto, Researching the Song serves as an invaluable guide for performers, teachers, and enthusiasts to the art song repertoire. Its more than 2,000 carefully researched entries supply information on most of the mythological, historical, geographical, and literary references contained in western art song. The authors explain the meaning of less familiar literary terms, figures, and authors referenced in song while placing songs in the context of larger literary sources. Readers will find entries dealing with art songs from the German, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, South American, Greek, Finnish, Scandinavian, and both American and British English repertoires. Sources, narratives, and explanations of major song cycles are also given. Organized alphabetically, the lexicon includes brief biographies of poets, lists of composers who set each poet's work, bibliographic materials, and brief synopses of major works from which song texts were taken, including the plots of all Restoration theater works containing Purcell's vocal music. The more performers know and understand the literary elements of a song, the richer their communication will be. Researching the Song is a vital aid for singers and teachers in interpreting art songs and building song recital programs.

Out

Out PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description
Out is a fashion, style, celebrity and opinion magazine for the modern gay man.

Selected Plays

Selected Plays PDF Author: James Purdy
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1566637988
Category : American drama
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
"James Purdy's Selected plays will break your damaged little heart."--John Winter."James Purdy's plays have much of the exciting existentiality that infuses his novels and seem content to take drama to interesting places it does not always want to go." -- Edward Albee."James Purdy is an authentic American genius." --Gore Vidal.

Who's Who in Lesbian and Gay Writing

Who's Who in Lesbian and Gay Writing PDF Author: Gabriele Griffin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134722095
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
A lively and accessible guide to lesbian and gay literary culture. Featuring authors of works with lesbian or gay content as well as known lesbian and gay writers, it offers an invaluable guide to a rich and varied literary culture.

Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States [2 volumes]

Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States [2 volumes] PDF Author: Emmanuel S. Nelson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 031334860X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 827

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Book Description
In this two-volume work, hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries survey contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer American literature and its social contexts. Comprehensive in scope and accessible to students and general readers, Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States explores contemporary American LGBTQ literature and its social, political, cultural, and historical contexts. Included are several hundred alphabetically arranged entries written by expert contributors. Students of literature and popular culture will appreciate the encyclopedia's insightful survey and discussion of LGBTQ authors and their works, while students of history and social issues will value the encyclopedia's use of literature to explore LGBTQ American society. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and lists additional sources of information. To further enhance study and understanding, the encyclopedia closes with a selected general bibliography of print and electronic resources for student research.