Out with the Stars

by James Purdy, Robert J. Corber (Foreword by)

Overview

Following the discovery of an anonymous libretto, Abner Blossom comes out of retirement to write an opera based on the life of infamous novelist-turned-photographer Cyril Vane. But those who knew Vane and his Russian-born wife, the silent-screen star Madame Olga Petrovna, are prepared to go to any length to suppress the truth about them. Vane’s dark secret follows him to the grave. But his jealous and vengeful widow and her faded cronies employ all the means at their disposal to prevent the opening of Blossom’s opera. Out with the Stars is peopled by the Gothic characters readers of James Purdy have come to anticipate and relish, from Val Sturgis, Kentucky boy made good and now Blossom’s protégé to Francis X. Beauregard, aging star of the silver screen now living surrounded by streetwise hustlers in his Brooklyn mansion.

Back in print for the first time since 1993, Purdy’s flamboyant tale of New York City’s pre-Stonewall bohemia includes an incisive Foreword by Robert J. Corber, placing the work within its rich social and cultural context.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781531501204
Publisher:	New York Relit
Publication date:	10/04/2022
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.49(d)

About the Author

James Purdy (Author)
James Purdy (1914–2009) was an American novelist, short-story writer, poet, and playwright who published more than a dozen novels, including Malcolm and Eustace Chisholm and the Works, as well as many collections of poetry, short stories, and plays. His work has been translated into many languages. In 2013, his short stories were collected in The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy.

Robert J. Corber (Foreword By)
Robert J. Corber is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor in American Institutions and Values at Trinity College. He is the author and editor of several books including, most recently, Cold War Femme: Lesbianism, National Identity, and Hollywood Cinema.

Editorial Reviews

A well-established maverick who can still find room in his fiction for the truly bizarre and unpredictable. There is certainly fun to be had in this convoluted story with prose of crystalline beauty.

London Review of Books

James Purdy was out of category, out of this world, and, hence, often out of print. He was also, without question, one of the most original American writers of the twentieth century.—Fran Lebowitz

One of the most undervalued and underread writers in America.—Jonathan Franzen

James Purdy's characters and situations linger in the memory.—Langston Hughes

[Purdy’s] style is impulsive and prodding, uniquely his own, and uniquely haunting.—Jonathan Lethem

An authentic American Genius.—Gore Vidal

A writer of the highest rank in originality, insight and power.—Dorothy Parker

"Anything Purdy writes is a literary event of importance."—Susan Sontag

From the Publisher

One of the very best writers we have.

New York Times Book Review

Highly successful, suspended from the high ceiling of Purdy’s prime, like a dazzling chandelier. Purdy has certainly never been funnier, his writing never more self-assured.

Times Literary Supplement

Purdy's trademark blend of high camp, bizarre characters, outrageous satire and piercing realism animates this offbeat romp. Over-the-hill composer Abner Blossom resolves to write an opera based on the lives of Cyril Vane, bisexual risque photographer of Harlem blacks, and his harpy Russian-born wife Olga Petrovna, a faded silent-screen star who claims to be a relative of the Romanovs. This odd couple, determined to suppress the truth about their lives, attempt to squelch Blossom's opera, Cock Crow , whose Brooklyn premiere climaxes a narrative that involves a scandalous funeral with hired mourners, a sleepwalker's suicide, a swarthy Sicilian youth who levitates and several gay love affairs. The colorful cast here includes Kentucky-born songwriter Val Sturgis, who is Blossom's obsequious protege, and former screen idol Francis X. Beauregard, who fills his 40-room mansion with servile young men. While Purdy ( Mourners Below ) satirizes avant-garde artiness and America's obsession with celebrities, he displays affectionate sympathy for his comic characters. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In this dazzling gothic comedy, one of our greatest writers tells the story of Abner Blossom, loosely based on composer Virgil Thomson, who is busy creating an opera about Cyril Vane--who's even more loosely created from the life of Carl van Vechten, the writer and photographer best remembered for his photographs of African American artists during the Harlem Renaissance. The opera is sure to be a scandal; it will reveal Vane's sexual obsessions with many of his male subjects. Vane's widow, silent screen star Olga Petrovna, is doing everything to block its production. Interspersed are half a dozen other stories, like that of Val Sturgis, Blossom's protege and a classic Purdy lost waif, who gets involved in one tragic gay love affair after another, each more gleefully mawkish than the last. Even while confronting and conflating racial and sexual stereotypes, Purdy has never been funnier. Recommended for larger collections.-- Brian Kenney, Brooklyn P . L.

Library Journal