Author James Purdy, whose obscure but highly regarded works
include
Cabot Wright Begins
and the gay-themed
Eustace Chisholm and the Works
, died Friday morning at a hospital in New Jersey. Though his
exact age is unknown, he was in his mid 80s.
Gore Vidal, Dorothy
Parker, and Tennessee Williams were among his biggest fans, but
outside literary circles, Purdy was a relative unknown.
According to the Associated Press, for the past several years
he lived in a one-room walk-up apartment in Brooklyn, outside
what he considered "the anesthetic, hypocritical, preppy,
and stagnant New York literary establishment."
Purdy's early works
were given a critical lashing, considered "fifth-rate,
avant-garde soap opera." The criticism caused him to leave
official literary establishment -- the American Academy of Arts
and Letters.
But his works would
later be regarded as "genius," particularly for his comic
phrasing. Though many of his works have fallen out of print,
several have been reissued in recent years.
Purdy told the
Associated Press in 2005 that growing up he had been
"exposed to everything." He said his books reflected his
deep understanding of sex, violence, race, class, familial
cruelty, and romantic longing.
His works sharply
divided critics. Of
Cabot Wright
,
New York Times
book critic Orville Prescott wrote that it was a "sick
outpouring of a confused, adolescent, and distraught
mind."
Days later, Susan
Sontag countered, saying the book was a "fluid, immensely
readable, personal and strong work by a writer from whom
everyone who cares about literature has expected, and will
continue to expect, a great deal."
A few years later,
Eustace Chisholm
became known as one of his landmark works, prompting the
Times
to write that it walked "that line of homosexual fiction
which announces itself not by subject matter but by
tone."
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