Customer Reviews

I am Elijah Thrush

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here is proof that a book can be both different and enjoyable at once. there is strangeness and surreal goings on upon each page, and page after page there is pure reading delight. I have loved every james purdy book that i have read (except Narrow Rooms, which i could not finish), and this is perhaps my favorite. this is a great american author, sadly overlooked. read this masterpiece of zany surrealism if you get the chance.

Some people will like this book, which is mercifully only 110 pages, but the "camp fantasy" genre is weakly executed. Reminiscent of Ronald Firbank's 'Sorrow in Sunlight' (which has a very politically incorrect title in the USA which if used has rejected my previous submissions), I am Elijah Thrush is like a sickly sweet sherry. The character Millicent de Frayn occasionally raised a smile and her lust for men was amusing but the fantasy overall failed to ignite interest or generate mental connection. On the evidence of this novella, it is difficult to understand why James Purdy has inspired a following of any kind especially literary.