James Purdy Books

A career-spanning selection of James Purdy's fiction, including the titular short novel, Purdy's first. Not to be confused with 63 Dream Palace and Other Stories .

Celebrate an authentic American genius (Gore Vidal) in James Purdy's first complete short story collection.

Exploring complex emotional and familial dynamics, this collection features four of James Purdy's notable plays: Brice, The Paradise Circus, Where Quentin Goes, and Ruthanna Elder. Each work delves into themes of betrayal, competition for parental love, and the struggle to find meaning in fractured relationships, showcasing Purdy's unique ability to craft tragedy. Celebrated for his contributions to theater, Purdy's plays reveal the intricacies of human connections and the often painful realities of familial ties.

"[S]o good that almost any novel you read immediately after it will seem at least a little bit posturing." —Jonathan Franzen 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 initially condemned for its frank depiction of abortion, homosexuality, and life on the margins of American society. A cast of characters displaced by economic distress congeal around the embittered poet Eustace Chisholm, who acts as a something of a Greek chorus for the doomed and destructive relationship that is instigated when landlord Daniel Haws falls in love with young college student Amos Ratcliffe. Building to a shocking conclusion, Eustace Chisholm and the Works is a dark and gothic look at the strange and terrible power of love amid a "psychic American landscape of deluded innocence, sexual obsession, violence, and isolation" (William Grimes, New York Times).

With tales from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, this new collection features sixteen macabre gems, including three original works and many others that have never or seldom been reprinted by. -- Page 4 of cover.

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 indecently,” with his great-grandson, Bird of Heaven. To support an unusual habit, a young Black man, Albert Peggs, reluctantly agrees to tell their remarkable story. It is in this telling that the ambitions, desires, and true natures of Elijah, Millicent, and Albert come to light. With a delicately controlled balance of whimsy and pathos, James Purdy gives us this comedy of the heroic, the tragic, and the truly bizarre.

The twenty-first-century revival of James Purdy continues with his classic novel of innocence and corruption.

Following the discovery of an anonymous libretto, a composer comes out of retirement to write an opera based on the life of the infamous novelist-turned-photographer Cyril Vane. A dazzling novel by one of America’s most underrated writers.