Synopses & Reviews
Cabot Wright is a handsome, Yale-educated stockbroker and scion of a good family. He also happens to be the convicted rapist of nearly three hundred women. Bernie Gladhart is a naive used-car salesman from Chicago, who--spurred on by his ambitious wife--decides to travel to Brooklyn and write the Great American Novel about the recently paroled Cabot Wright. As Bernie tries to track down Wright in Brooklyn, he encounters a series of bizarre and Dickensian characters and sets in motion an extraordinary chain of events. In this merciless and outrageous satire of American culture, cult writer James Purdy is unsparing and prophetic in his portrayal of television, publishing, Wall Street, race, urban poverty, sex, and the false values of American culture in a work compared to by Susan Sontag. Considered too scabrous for the stifling culture mores of the early 1960s, Purdy's comic fiction evokes "an American psychic landscape of deluded innocence, sexual obsession, violence and isolation" ().
Review
"Here is a native Nabokov...It is a wildly funny book, beautifully written and with a deadly serious underlay." Library Journal
Review
"It might be loosely described as a bravura work of satire--a satire on pornographic fantasy, a satire on New York literary life, a satire on affluent eccentric mid-century America. Except that satire is perhaps too narrow a term to convey the kind of comedy that Purdy writes...Rather [it is] the vehicle for a universal comic vision." Susan Sontag
Review
"James Purdy has succeeded better than anyone else around at the moment in re-creating the U.S.A. and presenting it simultaneously as his own invention and as a faithful reflection of reality--not an easy feat. is a delight all the way through." New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
, first published in 1964, may be one of the most neglected masterpieces in post-World War II American literature.
Synopsis
First appearing in the stifling cultural climate of early 1960s America, Cabot Wright Begins, despite exuberant reviews from a few of America’s most astute reviewers, was regarded, given its shocking and disturbing content, as far too ahead of its time. It tells the story of Chicago car salesman Bernie Gladhart who, spurred on by his ambitious wife, decides to write a novel about a recently paroled serial rapist, Cabot Wright. As Bernie tries to track down Wright in Brooklyn, he encounters a series of bizarre and Dickensian characters and sets in motion an extraordinary chain of events. Unsparing yet prophetic in its portrayal of everything from television to Wall Street, race, urban poverty, and especially sex, Purdy’s comic fiction evokes “an American psychic landscape of deluded innocence, sexual obsession, violence and isolation” (New York Times).
About the Author
James Purdy (1914–2009) is undergoing a major literary renaissance. The author of Malcolm and Cabot Wright Begins, he lived in Chicago, Illinois, before moving to Brooklyn, New York, to become a writer.