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Misfit

The Strange Life of Frederick Exley

by Jonathan Yardley

Summary

A biography of novelist Frederick Exley (1929-92), from his youth in a small upstate New York town, to the auto accident that ended his football career, to the publication of his one novel (the autobiographical "A Fan's Notes") that is considered great, as well as several lesser works.

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Media Reviews

"...Yardley proves tough and objective in re-creating Exley's life....'Misfit' adds a dark, factual foundation to Exley's one lasting book."

   -- Kirkus

"How closely did the real-life Exley resemble his literary alter-ego...? How was Exley able to transform his wrecked existence into 'one of the few monuments of post-war American fiction?' Mr. Yardley is uniquely qualified to answer such questions."

   -- Wall Street Journal

"...Yardley has undertaken to explain what was so singular about Fred Exley, whose literary persona Yardley rates as a great character of American literature, up there with Huckleberry Finn."    -- Ralph B. Sipper

   -- San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

"Yardley...struggles to perform honorably by a writer he manifestly admires....[H]e opts for a thesis-driven rather than a story-based account....Yardley's gift for resonant summary circumvents a numbing docket of dissipation."    -- Robert Polito

   -- New York Times Book Review

"Yardley's biography of Frederick Exley is likely to be of interest to die-hard Exley fans, but it won't make converts."    -- Robert Faggen

   -- Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Yardley has set himself a thankless task, and he seems to know it. But he earns near-redemption, and surely a measure of thanks, for a prologue that not only places 'A Fan's Notes' in the American canon...but also examines the huge obstacles facing modern American fiction writers..."    -- Kate Tuttle

   -- Boston Book Review

Bibliographic Details

Publisher: Random House Inc
Published date: 1997
Size: 6.25 x 10 inches
Weight: 1.15 pounds
Pages: 255

Publisher's Notes

Frederick Exley was at once unique and prototypical. He inhabited his own bizarre universe and obeyed no rules except his own, yet he was a familiar and characteristic American literary type: an author whose reputation rests on a single book. His life, which he described, and disguised, and distorted in all three of his books, rivaled his "fiction. Everything he did involved a struggle, and the most important struggle of his life was his writing; out of that strife came A Fans Notes, which Jonathan Yardley believes is one of the best books of our time.Exley was an alcoholic who drank in copious amounts, yet he always sobered up when he was ready to write. In his younger days he did time in a couple of mental institutions, which imposed involuntary discipline on him and helped him start to write. He was personally and financially irresponsible--he had no credit cards, no permanent address, and ambiguous relationships with everyone he knew--yet people loved him and took care of him.The center of Freds strange world was Watertown in upstate New York, where he was born and grew up. Other important points of his compass included various places in Florida and Hawaii, and a funky bar in New Yorks Greenwich Village called the Lions Head. No matter where he was, in the dark of night he phoned friends and subjected them to interminable monologues. To many, these were a nuisance and an imposition, but later, in the light of day, they were remembered with affection and gratitude.In Misfit, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic of The Washington Post portrays in full one of the most tormented, distinctive, and talented writers of the postwar years. Exleys story, which in Yardleys telling reads as if it were a novel, reveals a singular personality: raunchy, vulgar, self-centered, and even infantile, yet also loyal, self-deprecating, and unfailingly humorous. Sympathetic and affectionate, honest and unsparing, Yardley's portrait gives us a man who sacrificed everything in order to write and who becomes, even more than before, his own most memorable creation.

Other Editions

• Hardcover - Random House Inc (1997) - from $1.00
• Paperback - Natl Book Network (2001) - from $55.44

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