THE DECLINE AND FALL OF DAPHNE FINN

by Bruce Moody ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

There's nothing comparable to it. Genet is too low. Batman's too high. But somewhere in between falls this novel that takes ""camp"" back to its original meaning. It's a homosexual fantasia with a judo belt of rigid Protestantism thrown in. This is Wilfred T. Carroll's journal. Wilfred is a determined New York hermit, so superior-- ""I have seen the world and I am not impressed"" and so iconoclastic that he even goes to church under an assumed name. But the real non-character in this non-book is Daphne. Dahpne is the original Princess of Odds. She dazzles, bewilders, intrigues Wilfred with an Arabian Night's parade of her escapades with her two gay friends Peter and Richard. She lectures him on ""living imaginatively...improvising."" She involves him in riotous nonsense (masquerading as Dr. Joyce Brothers at the Overseas Press Club, etc.), has an affair with him and finally introduces him to the one thing he has unconsciously been searching for... a mirror image of himself. Some scenes are priceless; others (like Wilfred's agonizing over religion) are (pardon) a drag. Wavering between sensitivity and laughable insensibility this should be a sellout at Cherry Grove. It's all too ""Q"".

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward-McCann

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1966

Categories: FICTION