Synopses & Reviews
In 1955, Paul Praeder, poet and Coast Guard radio operator posted in the cultural isolation of San Juan, writes a letter to Billy Baxter, a young poet who has just published a poem dedicated to Praeder. The letter, effusive with thanks but also gruff, arrogant, and filled with self-deprecating humor, immediately sets the tone and draws the reader in to this astonishing novel-in-verse. The story unfolds over the span of thirty years, with Praeder's last letter dated 1985. In the course of those three decades we watch with growing alarm and fascination as Praederan immensely complex character with the bravado of a Hemingway hero, the literary erudition and despair of Berryman's Dream Songs persona, and the dark, self-destructive magnetism of Conrad's Captain Kurtzmanages to fatally meld his protgBilly's life and loves with his own. Praeder manipulates, cajoles, lies, flatters, and advises his disciple into a tangle of betrayal and reversals, until finally the teacher becomes the supplicant, and the student is thrust against his will into the role of savior. Praeder's story embodies all the elements of change and ambiguity that transformed America in the latter twentieth century. It is a story of lost moral compass, in which artistic integrity is traded for commercial success, and friendship and fidelity fall to lust and greed. In Paul Praeder, James Baker Hall has created a new and disturbing addition to the pantheon of American literary characters. Praeder's Letters is both a daring literary experiment, and an engrossing, heartbreaking, thrilling read.
Synopsis
Paul Praeder—an immensely complex character with the bravado of a Hemingway hero, the literary erudition and despair of Berryman’s Dream Songs persona, and the dark, self-destructive magnetism of Conrad’s Captain Kurtz—is a new and disturbing addition to the pantheon of American literary characters. His story unfolds over his 30-year correspondence with a young poet, and it is a story of lost moral compass, in which artistic integrity is traded for commercial success, and friendship and fidelity fall to lust and greed.
James Baker Hall is currently the Poet Laureate of Kentucky.
Synopsis
Advanced reader copies and participations in Books Sense program; newsletter and catalog feature mailed to entire Sarabande database; 2000 brochures and 1000 postcards mailed to MFA programs, bookstores, and libraries.
Synopsis
A daring literary experiment, and an engrossing read from Kentucky's Poet Laureate.
About the Author
James Baker Hall is the current Poet Laureate of Kentucky. Praeder's Letters is his sixth book of poems. The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, and The Kenyon Review are among the many magazines to have published his work. He has received an NEA fellowship in poetry writing and has won both Pushcart and O. Henry prizes. He lives with his wife, fiction writer Mary-Ann Taylor Hall, in the Kentucky countryside, and teaches at the University of Kentucky.