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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
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OUT WITH THE STARS

James Purdy

One of James Purdy's most exciting short novels.
In OUT WITH THE STARS (1992), a composer comes out of retirement to write an opera based on the life of the infamous novelist-turned-photographer Cyril Vane. But those who knew Vane and his wife, a silent-screen star, are prepared to go to any lengths to suppress the truth about them.
The novel may be read as a roman-à-clef about Carl Van Vechten and his circle but is also a savage take down of the definition of "culture" in America.

Novelist, playwright, and poet James Purdy (1914-2009) was praised by artists as diverse as Dorothy Parker, Katherine Anne Porter, Susan Sontag, and John Waters. In the past decade his rediscovered work has been celebrated in The New Yorker and The Guardian. A uniquely American voice, his novels express the experience of people living outside of conformist society. New Italian editions of his work from Racconti Edizioni have been a critical success, reviewed in Corriere della Sera, La Stampa, La Repubblica, and elsewhere. A new biography of James Purdy (James Purdy: Life of a Contrarian Writer) will be published by Oxford University Press in 2022.
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Published 2022-10-01 by Fordham University Press/New York ReLit

Comments

Dutch: Athenaeum/ Polak & Van Gennep