Fiction of Gay Interest

I am Elijah Thrush
James Purdy
Publisher: Gay Men's Press
London, UK

Year


 		1986       first published US 1972
Cover / size: Hardback / h 20.6 cm * w 13.4 cm / 120 pp

Dustjacket?   yes

ISBN: 0854490116

Arbery Ref:   000160

Condition Very Good

Ink inscription on pre-title page; stamped inscription "PRINTED IN ENGLAND" on post-title page (in addition to printed "Printed in Guernsey"); pages foxed; otherwise excellent condition.

Price £4.00
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Plot / Content:                              Rating: G

Enter Elijah Thrush - mime, poet, part prophet of unspeakable corruption and eternal youth - in this bizarre and hilarious fantasy set in James Purdy's own reinterpretation of New York City.

(from the jacket)



Background / Biography:

James Otis Purdy (17 July 1914 – 13 March 2009) was a controversial American novelist, short story-writer, poet, and playwright who published over a dozen novels, several collections of poetry, short stories, and plays. Purdy was the recipient of the Morton Dauwen Zabel Fiction Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1993) and nominated for the 1985 PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel On Glory's Course (1984).


For more information on James Purdy, and other books of his from Arbery Books, click here 		Joseph Hansen Photo by Carl Van Vechten, 1957





Reviews:

"When I last reviewed a novel by James Purdy, I applied to him the word - not a favourite of mine - 'genius'. Having read this American author's latest tale, I can only repeat my original judgement. It is usually poets, not novelists, who produce visions of such mythopoetic grandeur." Francis King, Sunday Telegraph

"Mr Purdy astonishes us with the vividness and fluency that he imparts to an extremely fanciful story. The effects are dazzling!" New Yorker

"Hauntingly serious and beautifully written ... this book does so many things, finally resisting demystification through its inexhaustible magic" Tony Tanner, Partisan Review

(from the jacket)






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"Millicent De Frayne, who was young in 1913, the sole possessor of an immense oil fortune, languished of an incurable ailment, her willful, hopless love for Elijah Thrush, 'the mime, poet, painter of art nouveau,' who, after ruining the lives of countless men and women, was finally himself in love, 'incorrectly, if not indecently,' with his great-grandson.

Because of my dependence on my habit, I was fool enough to become a paid memoirist to Millicent De Frayne, and because I am also black I was specially prized by her likewise on the ground many doors in New York would be opened to me which were closed to a white man. "






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