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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Purdy's People", 4 Feb 2008
I first heard James Purdy's name in a Survey of American Literature class in 1978, when I was 17. I've forgotten the exact thread of that day's discourse, but it had something to do with "Angry Young Men," and "both sides of the Atlantic." As a 17-year-old homosexual and speaker of English as a second language, I had about as much interest in angry young men with typewriters on whatever side of what ocean as a devout carnivore like a lion is in a bowl of lettuce. Until, that is, the word "homosexuality" cropped up in the same paragraph as a work of Purdy. The second the bell rang I dashed to the library and got me a book by Mr. James Purdy. "Malcolm" was out, I wasn't interested in poetry collection, so I got the one with the long title.
My encounter with gay literature in 1978 could barely be called literary, but enough to qualify me as a gay child of my time. "Last Exit To Brooklyn" was the first book I ever read with a gay character in it. Disgusting book. I couldn't put it down. I kept reading on, hoping some kind of redemption would happen to the gay characters. And of course nothing of the sort did. At 17 "The Front Runner" was obligatory, otherwise the word "gay" would have soon become be too literal an adjective to perfume the otherwise thick clouds of irony that trail young hip poofsters like myself as we escape our teens and do our literary gay beads in our 20s: Gore Vidal's "City and the Pillar," Mann's "Death In Venice," Baldwin's "Giovanni's Room," Renault's "The Charioteer," and an anthology called "Different."
In fact, the first few pages of "Eustace Chisholm and the Works" kept dragging me back to my lit class as I tried, hands-on, to find the objective-correlative of "angry young men," never mind what side of the Atlantic. It wasn't until Daniel Haws entered the scene that I started listening to James Purdy. Yes, "listening." When you read a book and you start "hearing" the author's voice, that's a good sign you're reading something written by a great, unique and powerful mind. This happened to me with E.M. Forster, Oscar Wilde, Mary Renault, Isherwood. And that's just the gay section of the library. This voice-over does not happen with inferior books, or books written by inferior writers. And so when Daniel Haws walks in from the humid Chicago heat, I immediately took mental note to find the perfect actor to play him in the movie version. Never did find him. That is, until I saw Clive Owen in "Closer" some 30 years later. Or Daniel Craig in that Truman Capote movie. And then in comes Amos Ratcliff in the picture, he of the blond curls and baby blues. Daniel sleepwalks into Amos's bedroom every night, but no sex ever happens, much as lovesick Amos tearfully begged for it...and in the morning Amos had to accompany Maureen to the abortionist. Daniel knocked her up and she doesn't want the baby..
And where is the title character in all this? Well, the novel is partially told from his point of view, and it is in his monologues, soliloquys and everybody else's lines that Purdy's voice truly comes alive, often with such peculiarly Purdy pitch that sometimes I felt like I was in the next room to the characters, eavesdropping, and if they catch me, they'd toss me out the window, especially that silent volcano named Daniel Haws....
As for Amos Ratcliff, there was an actor in the late 70s(?) early 80s(?) named John Eric Hexum who I thought would be perfect as Amos, but he died the next day. I mean, what's up with that? Maureen? Ileana Douglas, hands down.
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by James Purdy
by Andrew Holleran
