The Tower of Babel [Paperback]

Jack Spicer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1994

Fiction. An established writer from an Eastern college returning to his former San Francisco haunts becomes entangled in a labyrinthine series of events that culminate in the sudden violent death of a respected poet. Described by Lewis Ellingham and Kevin Killian as "a satiric look at the private world of poetry gone public in the wake of the Six Gallery HOWL reading of October, 1955," THE TOWER OF BABEL includes finely detailed sketches of the San Francisco poetry world and gay life as they existed then.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

It is the late 1950s. John James Ralston, an academic and poet living in Boston, returns to the San Francisco he left seven years ago, a copy of Partisan Review under his arm (it contains a review of his first book). He wants to take risks, to make poetry exciting again. In his first encounter with so-called Beat poets his magazine is torn up and he is presented with a poem in the mouth of a fish; later, one of the poets Ralston has encountered is found dead, apparently from a fall off his fire escape. This unfinished, posthumous potboiler would stand a better chance of finding an audience were it not billed as detective fiction. There is little of the action or tension readers expect from the genre, and the element of amateur detectives seeking clues that will lead them further astray does not enter until late in the book. The writing is flat, and Ralston's repetitive self-analysis (he's also married to a psychiatrist) is hardly insightful. But most disappointing is the unfocused prose. Spicer (1925-1965) was not only a major figure in the San Francisco Renaissance of the late '50s and early '60s, he was one of the most powerful and innovative poets of his time.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Talisman House (January 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188368904X
• ISBN-13: 978-1883689049
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,899,278 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spicer's Novel Rewarding On Many Levels, April 23, 2000

By 

Don Lee (Fayetteville, Arkansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tower of Babel (Paperback)

There are basically three sorts of readers who will pick up Jack Spicer's posthumously published, unfinished detective novel, THE TOWER OF BABEL. First of all, of course, are mystery enthusiasts, of which Spicer himself was one (as it explains in the afterword: Hammett and Chandler were particular favorites of his). Second, readers with an interest in the poets and artists of the San Francisco Renaissance of the 1950s and '60's--TOWER OF BABEL is both a portrait of that scene, and a critique of it. Finally, anyone who is an enthusiast for Spicer's strange, hermetic, brilliant poetry will want to see what he was like as a prose writer.

Of the three readers, perhaps only the mystery enthusiast will be disappointed, because TOWER OF BABEL--like Charles Dickens' MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD--if unfinished. But the writing is very fine, witty, discerning--poets often make the best novelists, because of their care for individual words, individual sentences--and Spicer's characterizations are brilliant. My favorite is Henry, the one-armed letter-writer. Anyway, find it and read it. And, as the editors suggest, make up your own ending.