James Purdy

• Jun-1959
• / General Fiction
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The twenty-first-century revival of James Purdy continues with his classic novel of innocence and corruption. Introduced simply as “the boy on the bench,” the titular character of Malcolm is a Candide-like figure who is picked up by the “most f...

• Jan-1975
• / General Fiction
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Garnet Montrose returns home from Vietnam to small-town Virginia with injuries so terrible that people become ill at the sight of him. Seeking assistance and companionship in his isolation, Garnet hires two young male caretakers, Quintus and Daven...

• Feb-1975
• / General Fiction
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• Aug-1980
• / General Fiction
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• Dec-1980
• / General Fiction
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• Mar-1981
• / General Fiction
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Tells the stories of two brothers who move to a Chicago slum after their mother's death, a woman who can't abide her new, married name, a father and son who are unable to express their feelings, and others...

• Jun-1981
• / General Fiction
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• Feb-1984
• / General Fiction
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"On Glory's Course" is set in Fonthill, a small Midwestern town of the 1930s where Adele Bevington, a faded and fallen beauty, arrives searching for the illegitimate son she never knew and is drawn into a sinister plot with the local townspeople....

• Jan-1986
• / General Fiction
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Cabot Wright Begins, first published in 1964, may be one of the most neglected masterpieces in post�"World War II American literature. Cabot Wright is a handsome, Yale-educated stockbroker and scion of a good family. He also happens to be the convic...

• Oct-1986
• / General Fiction
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On its surface, I Am Elijah Thrush is the story of Millicent De Frayne and her sensational half-century campaign to win the love of Elijah Thrush. Elijah, after ruining the lives of countless men and women, is finally in love “incorrectly, if not i...

• Sep-1991
• / Literary
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• Oct-1993
• / Literary
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Following the discovery of an anonymous libretto, Abner Blossom comes out of retirement to write an opera based on the life of infamous novelist-turned-photographer Cyril Vane. But those who knew Vane and his Russian-born wife, the silent-screen star...

• Apr-1996
• / Horror
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Opening this collection, now in a new paperback edition, is a terrifying encounter with a werewolf, a scene from an early draft of Dracula. Here, too, is The Squaw," Bram Stoker's most blood-curdling story, set in a medieval torture chamber. The the...

• Sep-1998
• / General Fiction
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• Jun-1999
• / General Fiction
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A vision of evil and dark salvation peopled with bizarre and memorable characters. Satirizing New York in the 1980s, its themes include the scourge of AIDS, criminal conspiracies, the excesses of the super-rich, transexualism, modern evangelism, and ...

• Sep-2004
• / General Fiction
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A literary cult hero, James Purdy’s exquisitely surreal fiction has been populated for more than 40 years by social outcasts living in crisis and longing for love. His acclaimed first novel Malcolm (1959) won praise from writers as diverse as Dame ...

• Dec-2004
• / General Fiction
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"[S]o good that almost any novel you read immediately after it will seem at least a little bit posturing." -- Jonathan FranzenNo James Purdy novel has dazzled contemporary writers more than this haunting tale of unrequited love in an indifferent wor...

• Mar-2005
• / General Fiction
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The people of Prince’s Crossing called him the old maggot. Not just because he was despicably rich, nor because he owned all their farms, or sired the wild young men who tore up the roads with their galloping horses -- it was because they could not...

• Aug-2005
• / General Fiction
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Gore Vidal’s recent feature profile of James Purdy in the Sunday New York Times Book Review signaled the long overdue arrival of a major literary cult hero into the American canon. Purdy’s exquisitely surreal fiction has been populated for more t...

• Dec-2005
• / General Fiction
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Gore Vidal's 2005 feature profile of James Purdy in the Sunday New York Times Book Review signaled the long overdue arrival of a major literary cult hero into the American canon. Purdy is one of the last surviving, original, post-war pioneers of tran...

• Jul-2013
• / General Fiction
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Collected here for the first time are the complete short stories of “a singular American visionary” (New York Times).The publication of The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy is a literary event that marks the first time all of James Purdy’s...

• Apr-2015
• / Literary
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No James Purdy novel has dazzled contemporary writers more than this haunting tale of unrequited love in an indifferent world. A seedy depression-era boarding house in Chicago plays host to "a game of emotional chairs" (The Guardian) in a novel in...

• Oct-2018
• / Horror
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Since 2005, Valancourt Books has earned a reputation as one of the foremost publishers of lost and rediscovered classics, reissuing more than 400 unjustly neglected works from the past 250 years. In this third volume of horror stories, the editors...