He has always been celebrated by a cognoscenti of sorts that eagerly followed his fitful appearances in print among his admirers are such high-powered figures as Susan Sontag, Don DeLillo, Harold Bloom, Denis Donoghue, and Gordon Lish. They are the evidence of his unique and unmistakable talent together, they form the growing covenant of Brodkey’s promise to become one of the most important writers of our age.īrodkey has gradually surfaced into the public’s awareness over the past few years, after spending most of the last three decades in quietly cultivated obscurity. These–the visible, dislocated fragments of the manuscript, for a while referred to as “The Animal Corner” and now as “A Party of Animals”–are the basis of Brodkey’s fabulous reputation, the milestones of his singular literary career. Portions of it have been appearing in magazines since the early 70s. Brodkey apparently has been working on his project for over 25 years. In a brief survey of who’s who among America’s literary heavyweights (fiction division) published in Vanity Fair two years ago, critic James Wolcott saved his most approbatory remarks for Updike and Brodkey–whom he compared, weighing which is the more likely to bear a greater distinction into posterity.īrodkey is the author of what may be the longest and most eagerly anticipated fictional work in progress since the 20s, when James Joyce introduced the term to describe the published bits and pieces of what finally became Finnegans Wake.
But you may never have heard of Brodkey, and more likely you’ve never read any of his work, even though many inhabitants of our literary world, particularly those closest to its nucleus in New York, write of him as though he were as well known as, say, John Updike. He is a full-fledged legend in the upper reaches of American print society. Harold Brodkey is the biggest question mark in American literature today. Best of Chicago 2022: Music & Nightlife.Best of Chicago 2022: Sports & Recreation.
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