Subject
[Fwd: something by Nabokov or Edmund Wilson (two of Exley's
favorites, I knew) ..]
favorites, I knew) ..]
From
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTES. Sandy Klein's recent series of press items, although
marginally about VN, lead to the reflection that VN has left a huge
footprint in XXth century American literature. His name appears, often
en passant, in an astounding number of reviews. The use of his name
usually arises in the context of 1) stylistic virtuosity and/or 2)
sex.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: something by Nabokov or Edmund Wilson (two of Exley's
favorites, I knew) ..
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 04:44:52 -0400
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
To:
CC:
http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/books/la-000042121jun16.story
Remembering Frederick Exley
By JEFF TURRENTINE, Jeff Turrentine is a senior editor with Hemispheres
magazine and has written for the New York Times Magazine and Slate.com.
Ten years ago this week, while eating breakfast in my cubicle at a large
publishing company in Manhattan, I opened the New York Times and learned
that Frederick Exley had died. The obituary reported that on June 17,
1992, the 62-year-old author of the autobiographical novel "A Fan's
Notes" succumbed to a stroke that had befallen him a week earlier at his
home in upstate New York, though anyone familiar with that book had to
wonder if Exley had finally done himself in with one too many weekends
of the "foodless, nearly heroic drinking" he so vividly recounted in its
pages.
I finished reading, then called my roommate, Randy, whose initiation
into the cult of Exley I had recently effected by loaning him my
dog-eared copy of "A Fan's Notes" as well as its two sequels, "Pages
From a Cold Island" and "Last Notes From Home." There would be no
road-trip pilgrimage from Brooklyn up to Alexandria Bay, as I had been
imagining. We had missed the chance to embarrass ourselves at Exley's
front door, bearing welcome if cliched propitiations (a bottle of
Smirnoff, a carton of cigarettes) and sheepishly requesting autographs
from--or better yet, an audience with--the man whose elegantly
constructed, hilariously filthy sentences we were given to quoting
aloud. Randy and I mourned that evening in a private ceremony at a
neighborhood bar. I had arrived in New York a year earlier and had
immediately begun looking for Exley in the watering holes he'd
frequented during his well-documented time in the city, saloons like
P.J. Clarke's in Midtown, Chumley's in the far West Village and
especially a place called the Lion's Head across from Sheridan Square
Park. Though I was fully aware that he didn't live in Manhattan anymore,
and though I was barely old enough to drink legally, I would often drift
into the Lion's Head after work, plant myself at a stool with something
by Nabokov or Edmund Wilson (two of Exley's favorites, I knew) and
order what I thought to be a suitably manly concoction in anticipation
of that moment when Fred would walk in the door and--spying me from the
corner of his eye between bawdy reminiscences with old
friends--intuitively size me up as the rightful heir to his legacy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: Click Here
<http://g.msn.com/1HM505401/46>
marginally about VN, lead to the reflection that VN has left a huge
footprint in XXth century American literature. His name appears, often
en passant, in an astounding number of reviews. The use of his name
usually arises in the context of 1) stylistic virtuosity and/or 2)
sex.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: something by Nabokov or Edmund Wilson (two of Exley's
favorites, I knew) ..
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 04:44:52 -0400
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
To:
CC:
http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/books/la-000042121jun16.story
Remembering Frederick Exley
By JEFF TURRENTINE, Jeff Turrentine is a senior editor with Hemispheres
magazine and has written for the New York Times Magazine and Slate.com.
Ten years ago this week, while eating breakfast in my cubicle at a large
publishing company in Manhattan, I opened the New York Times and learned
that Frederick Exley had died. The obituary reported that on June 17,
1992, the 62-year-old author of the autobiographical novel "A Fan's
Notes" succumbed to a stroke that had befallen him a week earlier at his
home in upstate New York, though anyone familiar with that book had to
wonder if Exley had finally done himself in with one too many weekends
of the "foodless, nearly heroic drinking" he so vividly recounted in its
pages.
I finished reading, then called my roommate, Randy, whose initiation
into the cult of Exley I had recently effected by loaning him my
dog-eared copy of "A Fan's Notes" as well as its two sequels, "Pages
From a Cold Island" and "Last Notes From Home." There would be no
road-trip pilgrimage from Brooklyn up to Alexandria Bay, as I had been
imagining. We had missed the chance to embarrass ourselves at Exley's
front door, bearing welcome if cliched propitiations (a bottle of
Smirnoff, a carton of cigarettes) and sheepishly requesting autographs
from--or better yet, an audience with--the man whose elegantly
constructed, hilariously filthy sentences we were given to quoting
aloud. Randy and I mourned that evening in a private ceremony at a
neighborhood bar. I had arrived in New York a year earlier and had
immediately begun looking for Exley in the watering holes he'd
frequented during his well-documented time in the city, saloons like
P.J. Clarke's in Midtown, Chumley's in the far West Village and
especially a place called the Lion's Head across from Sheridan Square
Park. Though I was fully aware that he didn't live in Manhattan anymore,
and though I was barely old enough to drink legally, I would often drift
into the Lion's Head after work, plant myself at a stool with something
by Nabokov or Edmund Wilson (two of Exley's favorites, I knew) and
order what I thought to be a suitably manly concoction in anticipation
of that moment when Fred would walk in the door and--spying me from the
corner of his eye between bawdy reminiscences with old
friends--intuitively size me up as the rightful heir to his legacy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: Click Here
<http://g.msn.com/1HM505401/46>