Wrong Information Is Being Given Out at Princeton: The Chronicle Of One Of The Strangest Stories Ever To Be Rumoured About Around New York [Paperback]

J. P. Donleavy (Author), Elliot Banfield (Illustrator), James Patrick Donleavy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 23, 1999

Alfonso Stephen O'Kelly'O known as Stephen, son of rumoured former bootleggers, ex-naval gunner, unemployed compuser, student of dairy cattle in Wisconsin and of music in Italy, has little to recommend him as a marriage prospect but his tender heart, his chivalry, and his comprehensive knowledge of the great city of New York. So when the exquisitely pneumatic and extraordinarily wealthy Sylvia Triumphington, adored adoptive heiress to the Triumphington family forture, sets her sights on him, Stephen is caught quite off guard.

Marrying into the Triumphington fortune, Stephen gets more than he bargained for. Sylvia's unexpected taste for rough sex, her obsession with finding her real mother, and her proclivity for spending Stephen's non-exsistent money are enough for him to handle but then there is the arrogant and unpredictable adoptive father and his elegant and insatiable wife, Drusilla, to whom Stephen conspicuously and inconveniently is attracted.

And then, of course, is the wrong information....

Featuring fourteen refined and witty illustrations by Elliot Banfield, the artist whose drawings enhanced the colorful antics of The Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms,, Wrong Information is Being Given out at Princeton, is an elegy on passion, a glorious, irreverent, and picaresque journey.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Judging by his previous novel, The Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms, and this new one, Donleavy, most famous for The Ginger Man (it was banned in America in 1955), seems fixated on odd or disagreeable people whose bizarre behavior puts them on society's margins. Here, the antihero is Stephen O'Kelly'O, a Rudolph Valentino look-alike, son of Irish bootleggers, naval veteran and generally oversexed layabout. In post-WWII Manhattan, he meets the very rich Sylvia Triumphington and almost immediately elopes with her. "I should have realized right there and then that I was getting involved with a deeply spoiled bitch," Stephen muses. That might be so, but Sylvia is at least poignantly rendered (she is preoccupied by the fact that she was adopted), and it is a shame that she is not the protagonist. Instead, we see the world through Stephen's eyes?a chore, since the self-styled "composer with artistic sensibilities" is impossible to like or take seriously. Stephen's social commentaries are so jejune they are funny; he uses Marxism as an excuse to avoid finding a job and insouciantly asks Sylvia's adoptive father to sponsor his musical career. But soon Stephen is having it off with Sylvia's adoptive mother, who has some kinky tastes of her own. Like Stephen's character, this novel is a muddle that's lewd without purpose and mean-spirited without irony. In fact, the book's promise ends at its amusing (and misleading) title. Illustrations by Elliott Banfield.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Back from service in World War II, Stephen O'Kelly'O is trying to settle down to his life's work as a composer in New York. While looking for a patron, Stephen is easily distracted by Sylvia, the spoiled and somewhat sadistic daughter of the fabulously wealthy Triumphington family. Stephen and Sylvia marry in haste, but when Sylvia eventually walks out, her mother, Drucilla, seduces Stephen. After Sylvia's death, Drucilla offers to "keep" him as composer and lover. Stephen refuses the offer, steps onto the Staten Island Ferry, and meets the love of his life. Best known for The Gingerman, Donleavy (The Lady Who Liked Clean Rest Rooms, LJ 6/15/97) plays on New York's diversity to craft a story of lives controlled by chance. The chaos that results is somewhat depressing, despite the impression of a happy ending. The illustrations by Ellliot Banfield are entertaining. Recommended for large fiction collections.?Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., Watch Hill
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 1st edition (December 23, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312244991
• ISBN-13: 978-0312244996
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #670,270 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much more rewarding than merely "boisterous" or "ribald"..., October 15, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Wrong Information is Being Given Out at Princeton: The Chronicle of One of the Strangest Stories Ever to Be Rumoured about Around New York (Hardcover)

If you enjoy Donleavy, you should give this novel a try; it's marvelously well-written. If you like his prose style you might conclude, as I do, that he's writing better than ever. The prose is, at times, simultaneously fractured and yet perfectly constructed. A paradox, I know, but that's what Donleavy can pull off at his best. The reviews of the novel will likely (and reasonably enough) focus upon its ribald scenes, characteristic outbursts of blarney, etc., etc...Donleavy has certainly not lost the flair for the comic and absurd scene. Beyond that, however, is an emotional punch that really hangs with you after finishing the book. The scene from with the title is taken is, for instance, quite brief and very powerful.

Steve Vivian

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Donleavy at his best! The finest novel of the year!, February 1, 1999

By 

Donald Harington [e-mail] (Fayetteville, Arkansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wrong Information is Being Given Out at Princeton: The Chronicle of One of the Strangest Stories Ever to Be Rumoured about Around New York (Hardcover)

Of all the novels I've read for pleasure or for review purposes during the past decade, none entertained and moved me as much as this splendid novel. At the age of 72, J.P. Donleavy hasn't lost a bit of his ability to pluck a fine elegiac melody on your heartstrings, nor has he lost his lively way with words, that "signature" of sentence fragments that make better English than any other writer's of our time. And here he returns to his home town, New York City, to depict it as no other writer ever has.

What amazes me is that hordes of "readers" are falling all over themselves to buy Tom Wolfe's latest, and so few people are jumping at the chance to savor a truly great novel like this one. There's no justice in the book-buying world.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tender, comic, lyrical pointillism, October 11, 2001

By 

Wordsworth (Greenwich, CT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Wrong Information Is Being Given Out at Princeton: The Chronicle Of One Of The Strangest Stories Ever To Be Rumoured About Around New York (Paperback)

J.P. Donleavy's narrative voice is unique. Setting him apart from all other writers. With a lyrical pointillism that is fragmented. Painting pictures of incredible poetic beauty. Sad and tender. And then, again, hilarious. Evoking all of one's senses. This tale is very New York. Where Donleavy was born. Before moving to Ireland, TCD and the Irish countryside. His subject, this time, is a starving composer living among wealthy friends and in-laws. Tormented by every woman he meets. Unable to understand just one of them. Even briefly. Bewildered by popular American culture. Which rains fortunes on untalented artists. Hiding the gifted in total obscurity. And starving them into anonymity. They await redemption. And recognition of their artistic merit. As the astonishing talents of Donleavy go unrecognized by the literary mainstream. Read Donleavy -- one of the most gifted and worthy and unheralded writers of our day.