Customer Reviews

On Glory's Course (Contemporary American Fiction)

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The novels of James Purdy are clearly an acquired taste, and few bother to acquire it. There is a very strange aura around all Purdy's books, written in the latter part of the 20th century, and with a view from it, but often (as here) set in earlier periods (here 1930). Alcohol (forbidden at this period) and sex (forbidden as a subject in polite society) serve similar functions, and have similar weight in the characters' lives. But so, too, do such things as "the chair she just had re-upholstered at great cost." Indeed, we are constantly reminded of the value of things to people, and wonder, sometimes, if they are not mere distractions from looking one's fellow man in the eye. Purdy is a moralist with a unique, personal morality. He is also, at times, screamingly funny. This is among the richest of his books.