Narrow Rooms

By James Purdy

Book Overview

Gore Vidal's recent feature profile of James Purdy in the Sunday New York Times Book Review signaled the long overdue arrival of a major literary cult hero into the American canon. Purdy's exquisitely surreal fiction has been populated for more than 40 years by social outcasts living in crisis and longing for love. However, Purdy was also among the first novelists to incorporate transgressive renderings of gay life into his work, including unapologetic, sexually explicit material. Narrow Rooms-his 1978 classic that ranks among his most masterful novels-is a passionate and sometimes bloody love story about adolescent obsession and revenge.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0877951837
• ISBN13: 9780877951834
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: Arbor House Publishing
• Length: 185 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Strange, wonderful, and erotic

This is my favorite Purdy book. It is one of the most original novels ever written - straightforward, brilliant, and weirdly kinky. I had the pleasure of telling Purdy so in person. He is a charming and kindly old fellow and I think he still lives in Brooklyn.

gay american "wuthering heights"

a beautifully written story of love and hate going to the extremes which resembles "wuthering heights" in more than one respect; semi-articulate passion in a deserted land bordering on madness and advancing slowly into a near intolerable showdown. it's amazing with which composure Purdy manages to tell this pitch black "romantic tale"; never corny, never embarassing, a perfectly clear, simple plot and language. Highly recommended (for everybody by the way, gay or not gay)

wonderfully dark, a brilliant articulation of desire & power

Purdy is poetic in his descriptions of some of our darker places. I've never read anyone write about pain, pleasure, desire, hate with such beaut