James Purdy, Author . Carroll & Graf $14 (240p) ISBN 978-0-7867-1417-9
Jewels, songs, grandmothers, wills and Ouija boards—the stuff of an old storyteller's magic—keep popping up in these 12 unusual, often fantastical stories by the prolific and under-recognized Purdy (Malcolm
; In a Shallow Grave
; etc.
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James Purdy, Author William Morrow & Company $19.95 (144p) ISBN 978-0-688-15901-6
The first novel published here in a decade by the prolific and award-winning author (Malcom; In a Shallow Grave) is idiosyncratic and tantalizingly elusive. Chicago matron Carrie Kinsella is devastated by the death of her daughter Gertrude, a...
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James Purdy, Author Grove/Atlantic $16.95 (254p) ISBN 978-1-55584-002-0
The Ojibwa Indian, Decatur, returns from World War I to the small Midwestern town of Yellow Brook where he sees the youth Chad Coultas and suddenly understands the boy is his son. The conflicting claims of Decatur and those of his legal father,...
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James Purdy, Author George Weidenfeld & Nicholson $0 (143p) ISBN 978-1-55584-066-2
This collection of 14 stories from the veteran author of Southern gothics has a delightful freshness and vitality. As usual, Purdy, a superb storyteller, builds from small intimacies. ""Scrap of Paper'' profiles an old woman who constantly fought...
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James Purdy. Norton/Liveright, $14.95 trade paper (224p) ISBN 978-0-87140-352-0
Even in 1964, when this novel was first published, it would have been an uphill slog to plausibly characterize a serial rapist as a philanthropist, and the angle of ascent has only increased in the ensuing decades. Cabot Wright works on Wall Street...
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James Purdy. Norton/Liveright, $25 (544p) ISBN 978-087140-669-9
Purdy’s gift for capturing the despair in people’s lives is abundantly present in this collection of 58 stories. A wife’s disdain for her husband is exemplified in her lack of confidence that he can change a refrigerator’s lightbulb, in “Man and...
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Gregory Crewdson, Author, James Purdy, Author City Lights Books $7.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-87286-256-2
``Short Papa,'' the tale of a child instructed to guard an heirloom watch, and the title story, which takes on sexual and societal taboos in a black man's obsessive love for a white teenager, are among the 14 stories here. ``This collection . . ....
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Gregory Crewdson, Author, James Purdy, Author Peter Owen Publishers $30 (192p) ISBN 978-0-7206-0861-8
Purdy's trademark blend of high camp, bizarre characters, outrageous satire and piercing realism animates this offbeat romp. Over-the-hill composer Abner Blossom resolves to write an opera based on the lives of Cyril Vane, bisexual risque...
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Gregory Crewdson, Author, James Purdy, Author Black Sparrow Press $15 (352p) ISBN 978-0-87685-844-8
This volume affords readers a new opportunity to evaluate this rare stylist. Purdy ( Garments the Living Wear ) has an ear for the way real people speak, and his disoriented voice is that of post-World War II America. His characters are emotional...
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