Re: Novelists now, in the spirit of Percy

From: Al Pearson (charles_almond_pearson@MSN.COM)
Date: Fri Jul 13 2001 - 11:45:22 EDT


In response to your inquiry, Thomas Maguane? Try The Bushwhacked
Piano and The Sporting Club.

You are the only other person I've heard of who's read Fan's
Notes. I read it about 30 years ago and rank it one of my
favorites.

Now I'll try some Ford. Had not heard of him. Nor Yates.

Meanwhile, you've got a treat ahead of you. I read all WP's
novels in the last year. I picked Moviegoer at random after a
friend casually suggested I might try Percy. Wow. He's my #1
novelist. I'm reading the Samway biography, and also want to
read the Robert Coles book Walker Percy, An American [...] (Can't
remember the exact title.).

Good luck on your novel.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tarallo, Mark" <Mark.Tarallo@BRIDGE.COM>
To: <PERCY-L@listserv.lsu.edu>
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2001 11:13 AM
Subject: Novelists now, in the spirit of Percy

> Greetings from a new listee,
>
> By way of introduction: I am a journalist based in Washington
DC, and am
> currently working on my first novel. I am very interested in
Percy's work,
> especially The Moviegoer, and I consider it the preeminent work
of a
> novelistic tradition I think of as
> "American existentialism" (I realise this term is in many ways
inadequate,
> but I believe you understand what I'm getting at).
>
> I also include some of Saul Bellow's work in this category,
especially his
> first novel, Dangling Man. Others in this vein: A Fan's Notes,
by Frederick
> Exley; Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates; and The
Sportswriter and
> Independence Day, by Richard Ford. (I once heard Ford say at a
reading that
> he could have never written the Sportswriter if had hadn't read
Moviegoer).
>
> My question to those of you to whom this classification makes
at least a
> little sense:
> Can you think of any other novels written in the last 20 years
that could be
> considered at least partially in kinship with these books? With
Percy and
> Yates gone and Bellow at the end of his career, I can only
think of Ford as
> someone in his prime who is working in this loose "tradition."
As an
> aspiring novelist, I tend to look to past generations for
inspiration, but I
> am very interested in finding out who is mining this vein at
the moment.
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Mark Tarallo
>
>
>
>
> I am working on my first novel, and am
>



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