THE HOUSE OF THE SOLITARY MAGGOT

by James Purdy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 1974

The author of Malcolm has written the second part of his continuous novel Sleepers in Moon-Crowned Valleys: Jeremy's Version -- an involuted, hypnotically repetitive and almost campily melodramatic tale about a bunch of folk living in geographically uncertain Prince's Crossing, a place that is -- literally as well as symbolically -- nowhere (first a town, then a village, then unincorporated county, then. . .?) Lady Nora Bythewaite spends her days spieling into the tape recorder (for the sake of a nearly mute army deserter named Corliss Vallant who doesn't wear clothes) the story of her life -- a tale of passion, doom, and envy amongst her three illegitimate children (Maynard Ewing -- the silent film star; Aiken Cusworth -- a crude horsetender; and Owen Hasking -- his brothers were his life. And death.). Purdy should make Aeschylus gnash his teeth in envy, not to mention the average reader, accustomed to merely the usual forms of southern post-bellum incest. The novel is written in a stilted language that appropriately matches its (sublime?) gothic ridiculousness: "" 'Did you see aught?' 'It was he, Eneas,' Lady Bythewaite spoke now into a whirling damp as thick as oblivion itself. 'I knew it could be no other than he. . . .'

Pub Date: Oct. 4, 1974

ISBN: 0786715170

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1974

Categories: FICTION