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Narrow Rooms
A powerful story of love turned round, of passion and fierce discovery, of lives illuminated by flickering violence.
As Purdy spins the story of the extraordinary symbiotic relationship between four boys in a remote West Virginia mountain town, led by the seemingly hypnotic power of the one known as "the renderer," the prose itself is rendered by Purdy into spare, ecstatic brilliance, and Narrow Rooms takes on the resonance of any time, any place, of haunted myth, of a tale of horror told in the darkness by generations, and never, never to be forgotten...
---From the first-edition dust jacket.
As Purdy spins the story of the extraordinary symbiotic relationship between four boys in a remote West Virginia mountain town, led by the seemingly hypnotic power of the one known as "the renderer," the prose itself is rendered by Purdy into spare, ecstatic brilliance, and Narrow Rooms takes on the resonance of any time, any place, of haunted myth, of a tale of horror told in the darkness by generations, and never, never to be forgotten...
---From the first-edition dust jacket.
185 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
25 people are currently reading
1681 people want to read
About the author
James Purdy
71 books139 followersJames Otis Purdy was an American novelist, short-story writer, poet, and playwright who, from his debut in 1956, published over a dozen novels, and many collections of poetry, short stories, and plays. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages and in 2013 his short stories were collected in The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy.
He has been praised by writers as diverse as Edward Albee, James M. Cain, Lillian Hellman, Francis King, Marianne Moore, Dorothy Parker, Dame Edith Sitwell, Terry Southern, Gore Vidal (who described Purdy as "an authentic American genius"), Jonathan Franzen (who called him, in Farther Away, "one of the most undervalued and underread writers in America"), A.N. Wilson, and both Jane Bowles and Paul Bowles.
Purdy was the recipient of the Morton Dauwen Zabel Fiction Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1993) and was nominated for the 1985 PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel On Glory's Course (1984). In addition, he won two Guggenheim Fellowships (1958 and 1962), and grants from the Ford Foundation (1961), and Rockefeller Foundation.
He worked as an interpreter, and lectured in Europe with the United States Information Agency.
He has been praised by writers as diverse as Edward Albee, James M. Cain, Lillian Hellman, Francis King, Marianne Moore, Dorothy Parker, Dame Edith Sitwell, Terry Southern, Gore Vidal (who described Purdy as "an authentic American genius"), Jonathan Franzen (who called him, in Farther Away, "one of the most undervalued and underread writers in America"), A.N. Wilson, and both Jane Bowles and Paul Bowles.
Purdy was the recipient of the Morton Dauwen Zabel Fiction Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1993) and was nominated for the 1985 PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel On Glory's Course (1984). In addition, he won two Guggenheim Fellowships (1958 and 1962), and grants from the Ford Foundation (1961), and Rockefeller Foundation.
He worked as an interpreter, and lectured in Europe with the United States Information Agency.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 124 reviews
August 15, 2021
The two men held one another in a perfervid embrace such as angels might be capable of but which men are said to have lost.
But these are no angels. And the mountains of West Virginia are not Heaven.
Sidney De Lakes, convicted of manslaughter and having served his time, returns home to his brother and to his past. The man he killed was his lover.
Sidney’s return heralds a new doom. Four men become entwined in their hunger to serve and their hunger to master. They play victim and perpetrator, destroying one to get to another. Damned by obsession, they will kill if they have to.
I had no idea where the narrative of Narrow Rooms was headed. I wasn’t disappointed. The four men have an almost mythological idolization of one another. (And the ending is almost mythological in itself.) I see their manipulative passions as partially due to them living in a remote mountain town with little access to other queer men. Violence charges into their lives like a train that cannot be stopped. And they may not want it stopped.
But these are no angels. And the mountains of West Virginia are not Heaven.
Sidney De Lakes, convicted of manslaughter and having served his time, returns home to his brother and to his past. The man he killed was his lover.
Sidney’s return heralds a new doom. Four men become entwined in their hunger to serve and their hunger to master. They play victim and perpetrator, destroying one to get to another. Damned by obsession, they will kill if they have to.
I had no idea where the narrative of Narrow Rooms was headed. I wasn’t disappointed. The four men have an almost mythological idolization of one another. (And the ending is almost mythological in itself.) I see their manipulative passions as partially due to them living in a remote mountain town with little access to other queer men. Violence charges into their lives like a train that cannot be stopped. And they may not want it stopped.
August 24, 2015
The most forceful impression of Narrow Rooms is how politically incorrect a novel it is. In a modern age where all LGBT people are supposed to be happy, well-adjusted poster children for homo-normativity, Purdy’s novel is like a runny dog turd smeared on a hot pavement.
A gothic tour de force of lust, perversion, obsession and violence, all often on the same page, Narrow Rooms ostensibly centres on a lovers’ triangle gone wrong. To give away any more of the lurid plot, especially the ending, would be to deprive Purdy’s novel of much of its impact. This is a book to experience; beware that it will probably hit you like a sledgehammer in the nuts.
What struck me immediately about Narrow Rooms is how pared down the writing is. Gone is the often ornamental writing and baroque plot contrivances of earlier novels like Cabot Wright Begins and Eustace Chisholm and the Works.
Here Purdy strips his writing bare, just as he lays bare the tortured souls of this wretched trilogy of characters. As a result, the book reads like a parable, while also having the impact of a Biblical story. This is also quite a brief novel, barely 200 pages, that moves inexorably from Sidney arriving home from jail to the domestic apocalypse unleashed at the end.
What is one to make of Purdy’s contention that true love is as much a destructive force as it is a creative one? That desire or even lust thwarted is liable to fester in a person, leading him to lash out with all the pain and rejection that he himself feels he has been dealt?
I constantly use the male pronoun, although I would hesitate to label this a ‘gay’ novel, despite the proliferation of gay sex, which runs the gamut from enthusiastic tonguing to eyebrow-raising S&M (and this all in a 1978 novel).
Despite the violence and anguish, can one ultimately see this as a novel of hope rather than despair? I would like to think so. After this late novel Purdy himself had about 20 years left to live, holed up in the Brooklyn, NY apartment where he stayed for 45 years until his death in 2009, largely ignored by the literary establishment that had so fêted him at the start of his career.
And yet I do not think this is a bitter novel. Instead it is a remarkable distillation of the uncompromising vision that Purdy had been honing throughout his career. As Paul Binding writes in the 1985 Introduction to the reprint: “If love is what frequently brings people into damned-seeing states of being, it – and it alone – is what brings about redemption.”
A gothic tour de force of lust, perversion, obsession and violence, all often on the same page, Narrow Rooms ostensibly centres on a lovers’ triangle gone wrong. To give away any more of the lurid plot, especially the ending, would be to deprive Purdy’s novel of much of its impact. This is a book to experience; beware that it will probably hit you like a sledgehammer in the nuts.
What struck me immediately about Narrow Rooms is how pared down the writing is. Gone is the often ornamental writing and baroque plot contrivances of earlier novels like Cabot Wright Begins and Eustace Chisholm and the Works.
Here Purdy strips his writing bare, just as he lays bare the tortured souls of this wretched trilogy of characters. As a result, the book reads like a parable, while also having the impact of a Biblical story. This is also quite a brief novel, barely 200 pages, that moves inexorably from Sidney arriving home from jail to the domestic apocalypse unleashed at the end.
What is one to make of Purdy’s contention that true love is as much a destructive force as it is a creative one? That desire or even lust thwarted is liable to fester in a person, leading him to lash out with all the pain and rejection that he himself feels he has been dealt?
I constantly use the male pronoun, although I would hesitate to label this a ‘gay’ novel, despite the proliferation of gay sex, which runs the gamut from enthusiastic tonguing to eyebrow-raising S&M (and this all in a 1978 novel).
Despite the violence and anguish, can one ultimately see this as a novel of hope rather than despair? I would like to think so. After this late novel Purdy himself had about 20 years left to live, holed up in the Brooklyn, NY apartment where he stayed for 45 years until his death in 2009, largely ignored by the literary establishment that had so fêted him at the start of his career.
And yet I do not think this is a bitter novel. Instead it is a remarkable distillation of the uncompromising vision that Purdy had been honing throughout his career. As Paul Binding writes in the 1985 Introduction to the reprint: “If love is what frequently brings people into damned-seeing states of being, it – and it alone – is what brings about redemption.”
April 1, 2024
Imagine a nihilistic, acid-bathed and bastardized version of Brokeback Mountain—minus the men’s wives as collateral damage and instead of Wyoming ranchlands set in a crumbling West Virginia town—that unlike that pap would never in a million years become a bestseller or make it to the big screen. With its rawness and rural Southern gothic trappings, this is much more in line with Purdy’s In a Shallow Grave than The Nephew, which by contrast is tepid and restrained in its emotional drama. Interestingly, there is even a similarity to In a Shallow Grave with regard to the caretaker relationship, which manifests in both books. However, this one still comes out ahead in terms of sheer depravity and futility. Read it while lying on the beach in high summer as the sun turns cold and black above you.
August 3, 2021
I don't know what to make of this novel. It starts as a kind of queer southern gothic, with some jaw dropping set pieces (that initial breakfast scene between Sidney and Gareth, whoa), and more sex than one might expect from the period. The characters keep changing their minds about which side of the love/hate relationship they fall on at the moment. Is it love, or do they want to kill each other? The violence and degradation spiral into a final sequence that's essentially torture porn; but with kissing (of course).
November 14, 2018
Narrow Rooms is a rural melodrama that approaches its theme of gay love with the same heightened grotesqueness that Flannery O'Connor brings to her subject of religious madness. It doesn't work. Purdy puts his four protagonists—a jailbird with masochistic leanings; a pothead who prefers to play paralytic; a beautiful rustic whose defining quality seems to be that he's tragic; and the "son of the renderer", aka "the scissors-grinder", an unwashed sadist with a seemingly messianic sway over the lusts of the others—through the emotional wringer, situating their tender, but often cruel, passions at the center of a garbled narrative. Much like Barry Hannah, Purdy eschews sound editing for a messy prose style that favors maintaining a constant sense of hysteria over well-rounded prose. The novel wishes to shock the reader with its blunt approach to carnality between men, but forty years later the luridness feels outdated and removed from actual human interaction. A forced enema, mutual fellatio, and a rape at the foot of a tombstone are all related with the same measure of disgust, an authorial tone that projects a misplaced high-seriousness which undercuts the novel from working even as a black comedy. And repetitive, unnatural dialogue littered with awkward profanity doesn't help matters. But what is the reader supposed to make of all this confused desire and bloodshed? Maybe the county doctor is right when he bemoans that the times are catching up with us all, regardless of the collateral damage. Or maybe the despondent brother is right when he realizes that things would have been better if he had only been willing to listen and accept others sooner. In any case, the want of getting laid shouldn't lead to a crucifixion.
October 28, 2021
Screw the haters: James Purdy’s insane Gothic melodrama Narrow Rooms is a total blast, at least for a certain kind of reader. A hallucinatory, incredibly overheated, horror-tinged, operatic dance of love and betrayal, Narrow Rooms gives not the least whit—not the least!—about whether its readers think its plot developments are “plausible”, its characters “realistic”, its structure “sensible”. No, this is a book that asserts itself with the unyielding intensity of a storm or a nightmare; you’ve got to be willing to play by its rules if you want to enjoy it, because it definitely won’t meet you in the middle. There is never a break in the novel. Every one of the characters, who speak in a mesmerizingly artificial language that blends rustic slang with Biblical intonation and declarative theatricality, is constantly in love, constantly tortured, always beautiful, always anguished; they hide nothing, and never quiet, but ceaselessly whirl in the harrowing maelstrom of their passions, colliding arbitrarily into each other with bone-breaking force. (How rare, it occurred to me while reading, to see male characters so nakedly emotional!) The churning core of frustrated desire at the root of the novel is the engine generating all of these excessive, impossible contortions in the plot and in the characters, the implausible tableaux, the heightened imagery and atmosphere. It makes for a totally wild and entertaining read, and sometimes even a devastating one. With time I may even be willing to recognize it as some sort of psychotic masterpiece. Wow!
March 22, 2022
Difficult to review this strange novel from 1978. It was strange then, and somehow even more strange today. The over-the-top circumstances and dialog are reminiscent of theatrical contemporaries such as Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams, who freely piled drama on top of outrageous developments.
Still, there are passages such as this: "The two men held one another in a perfervid embrace such as angels might be capable of but which men are said to have lost. They kissed one another oblivious to any other place or time, thirstily, their longing for one another it was clear could never be appeased."
Typing that out, I realized that "one another" is repeated thrice. Perhaps therein is a clue to an underlying theme in this novel about attachment, obsession, and power.
Still, there are passages such as this: "The two men held one another in a perfervid embrace such as angels might be capable of but which men are said to have lost. They kissed one another oblivious to any other place or time, thirstily, their longing for one another it was clear could never be appeased."
Typing that out, I realized that "one another" is repeated thrice. Perhaps therein is a clue to an underlying theme in this novel about attachment, obsession, and power.
August 29, 2012
Purdy's work is both humbling and inspiring. He's that good. I found myself reading passages over and over, enrapt, amazed.
April 24, 2011
OMG! I'll add more later when I recover from reading this...
September 30, 2025
Definitely one of my favorite novels of 2025, indeed it is one of my all-time favorite novels. This novel is superb on so many levels - it is real, visceral writing. This is a dive back into archetypes, myths and legends. This is a novel about fate, love and destiny. But this is not the comforting Disneyfied myths that we know now, even the brothers Grimm have been neutered. They knew what legends should be cruel to be true when, for example, they created their bloody version of for example, Cinderella. Narrow Rooms is a myth as the Greeks understood it. Philoctetes, Orestes, Pentheus, Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, Orpheus what did any of them do but suffer because they loved and did their duty. You want 'transgressive' literature? It is there from the beginning in those myths we give to children to read and is far more disturbing than the coprophiliac nonsense of current 'trangressive' writers pour forth. The unfairness of the universe, the cruelty and indifference of the Gods (or God) towards man (and woman) is all there is to know and to survive. As for prosperity? its a crap shoot.
'Narrow Rooms' is a love story, but a love story that realises love is a monster that is more likely to destroy than to bring happiness to those under its thrall. The Greeks feared the disorders that passion could bring, that is why they sought the middle way between extremes. They feared love. Writers who know their stuff still fear love (see my review of 'Lovely' by Frank Ronan). This is a novel of men disordered by a passion that destroys. If you are looking for a 'gay' story that mimics the heteronormative world this ain't it. This, as I said or implied already, is a story that goes-back-to-basics, to the primordial dark places in our id where all true literature springs from. There is no comfort here. But then what comfort does love bring in Romeo and Juliet? The blood of Mercutio, Tybalt and Paris stain the stage before the eponymous characters and Lady Montague join them. Death by murder, suicide and despair and we celebrate this as a love story? On that basis 'Narrow Rooms' should be on school curricula because this is novel not about 'gay' sex or 'gay' love but sex and love and how the passions distort and drive us mad. James Purdy doesn't see any difference between types of love and sex even if he does make passing acknowledgement of established shibboleths in 1978.
Everyone who reads this as a gay or LGBT (etc., etc., etc. think of Yul Brenner in 'The King and I' - thank you Rogers and Hammerstein) so misses the point that they end up confirming Gore Vidal's fear that 'gay' literature would be nothing more than a literary cul-de-sac. This is grown up literature to challenge and offend.
I don't know what else to say about this extraordinary novel. I am sure most younger people today will not understand it and most likely hate it even more than it was misunderstood and hated when first published. In some ways that original lack of understanding was more honest and true. It was based on an unapologetic moral revulsion based on a prejudice we have long outgrown. But we have acquired a more all encompassing moral straight jacket and world view. I despise it and make no apologies for doing so. Perhaps those who would hate this novel need to read it more than anyone else. But they won't and they'll cling to their mediocrity. I can't help quoting from Equus by Peter Schaffer:
“The Normal is the good smile in a child's eyes:-alright. It is also the dead stare in a million adults. It both sustains and kills-like a god. It is the Ordinary made beautiful: it is also the Average made lethal. The Normal is the indispensable, murderous God of Health, and I am his priest. My tools are very delicate. My compassion is honest. I have honestly assisted children in this room. I have talked away terrors and relieved many agonies. But also-beyond question-I have cut from them the parts of individuality repugnant to this god, in both his aspects. Parts sacred to rarer and more wonderful gods. And at what length...Sacrifices to Zeus took at the most, surely, sixty seconds each. Sacrifices to the Normal can take as long as sixty months.”
There is no 'normal' in 'Narrow Rooms' I don't think there is 'normal' in anything James Purdy wrote but that doesn't mean his work is not based in truth or the ordinary. None of the boys trapped in the symbiotic relationship or the characters that circle them like satellites are anything but ordinary but it is when the ordinary is touched by the divine, be it fate or furies, that literature is born.
I haven't said it before but if you don't read this novel, or anything by Purdy, you are a fool and have wasted your reading time.
'Narrow Rooms' is a love story, but a love story that realises love is a monster that is more likely to destroy than to bring happiness to those under its thrall. The Greeks feared the disorders that passion could bring, that is why they sought the middle way between extremes. They feared love. Writers who know their stuff still fear love (see my review of 'Lovely' by Frank Ronan). This is a novel of men disordered by a passion that destroys. If you are looking for a 'gay' story that mimics the heteronormative world this ain't it. This, as I said or implied already, is a story that goes-back-to-basics, to the primordial dark places in our id where all true literature springs from. There is no comfort here. But then what comfort does love bring in Romeo and Juliet? The blood of Mercutio, Tybalt and Paris stain the stage before the eponymous characters and Lady Montague join them. Death by murder, suicide and despair and we celebrate this as a love story? On that basis 'Narrow Rooms' should be on school curricula because this is novel not about 'gay' sex or 'gay' love but sex and love and how the passions distort and drive us mad. James Purdy doesn't see any difference between types of love and sex even if he does make passing acknowledgement of established shibboleths in 1978.
Everyone who reads this as a gay or LGBT (etc., etc., etc. think of Yul Brenner in 'The King and I' - thank you Rogers and Hammerstein) so misses the point that they end up confirming Gore Vidal's fear that 'gay' literature would be nothing more than a literary cul-de-sac. This is grown up literature to challenge and offend.
I don't know what else to say about this extraordinary novel. I am sure most younger people today will not understand it and most likely hate it even more than it was misunderstood and hated when first published. In some ways that original lack of understanding was more honest and true. It was based on an unapologetic moral revulsion based on a prejudice we have long outgrown. But we have acquired a more all encompassing moral straight jacket and world view. I despise it and make no apologies for doing so. Perhaps those who would hate this novel need to read it more than anyone else. But they won't and they'll cling to their mediocrity. I can't help quoting from Equus by Peter Schaffer:
“The Normal is the good smile in a child's eyes:-alright. It is also the dead stare in a million adults. It both sustains and kills-like a god. It is the Ordinary made beautiful: it is also the Average made lethal. The Normal is the indispensable, murderous God of Health, and I am his priest. My tools are very delicate. My compassion is honest. I have honestly assisted children in this room. I have talked away terrors and relieved many agonies. But also-beyond question-I have cut from them the parts of individuality repugnant to this god, in both his aspects. Parts sacred to rarer and more wonderful gods. And at what length...Sacrifices to Zeus took at the most, surely, sixty seconds each. Sacrifices to the Normal can take as long as sixty months.”
There is no 'normal' in 'Narrow Rooms' I don't think there is 'normal' in anything James Purdy wrote but that doesn't mean his work is not based in truth or the ordinary. None of the boys trapped in the symbiotic relationship or the characters that circle them like satellites are anything but ordinary but it is when the ordinary is touched by the divine, be it fate or furies, that literature is born.
I haven't said it before but if you don't read this novel, or anything by Purdy, you are a fool and have wasted your reading time.
August 24, 2021
DEAR GOD!!! How to even talk about this novel!? It might be my favorite James Purdy. Just when you think it couldn't get crazier, it tops what came before. I'll talk about it later. I need a glass of water.
2nd reading:
Even MORE transgressive than I remember, and EVEN MORE SO NOW, somehow. Purdy was not concerned with respectability, was not interested in being a good queer, writing positive gay representation. He was interested in mining the depths of the obsessive souls of desperate people, caught up in their little desires and petty grievances, that in his world are EVERYTHING.
2nd reading:
Even MORE transgressive than I remember, and EVEN MORE SO NOW, somehow. Purdy was not concerned with respectability, was not interested in being a good queer, writing positive gay representation. He was interested in mining the depths of the obsessive souls of desperate people, caught up in their little desires and petty grievances, that in his world are EVERYTHING.
September 15, 2015
A 1/2 star...my kingdom for a 1/2 star.
This was a tightly woven, sparingly worded, southern gothic deliciousness.
Such utter co-dependence and the far reaching ramifications of the mental chasms created by that vortex of shit . Gods the world can be a dark, oppresive place.
Overall, 4.5 stars of tense release. A good read.
This was a tightly woven, sparingly worded, southern gothic deliciousness.
Such utter co-dependence and the far reaching ramifications of the mental chasms created by that vortex of shit . Gods the world can be a dark, oppresive place.
Overall, 4.5 stars of tense release. A good read.
November 23, 2022
This is a great read that just flies by. The dark story is frustrating but interesting. The disaster of characters and lack of communication make the story a bit dated since no one can accept their own feelings but the story still works. The slow march toward darkness is set in the depths of the West Virginia mountains and the setting really helps focus the story. It is hard to believe this story is as old as it is; it must have been quite revolutionary for the time.
April 21, 2023
There is a lot to process. This is sadistic and scary at times. And beautiful at times. The range of emotions and the games at play.
December 14, 2023
brokeback mountain on russian bath salts and viagra
August 9, 2021
Het meest krankzinnige boek dat ik in tijden las. Een mix van Bataille, Faulkner en GTST; ruwe en sadistische passie in het binnenland van de VS.
*3,5
*3,5
January 2, 2024
Sick, intense, passionate, masochistic love pushed to the limit.
November 24, 2018
Ok... so I've read this, and well, I can understand why it was so controversial and why the author is considered and outsider, but yet I did not quite surprised me at all.
This was supposed to be my warming up book to read Jean Genet's work, which, by what I have read, is hardcore compared to this, but we'll see how I deal with that. It has more flaws than virtues but I think the virtue prevails above them, and that is, that this book is a page turner, you become interested on the story and in spite the way he picks some words for his narration (he should have changed his name for James Wordy) the rhythmn is steady and it does not make you feel tired.
Inconvenients, sure, first and foremost all the homo-erotic thing going on (which is disgusting for me as a mental image but that does not mean I am against LGBT rights and all they plead for, I do think they deserve equal treatment and can do with their lives whatever they want to do, but still homoerotic scenes have the same effect for my mind that to some people seeing blood or the smell of caviar, just that) but you just go on for the sake of the story.
His wording as I mentioned, I expected a more direct and raw style (i.e. all Jim Thompson or Dashiell Hammett as an example) but no, it is sometimes poetic, and corny and I don't like that. Yes I caught the rarified atmosphere around the story, twisted, sometimes hyperbolic (it reminded me of Clive Barker) and it has its merit.
The characters are confusing, which does not mean they are complex, they only know extremes and in the very last pages they lose all their personality (if the had one ever)to let the big plot lines speak in their voices, over and over again. The shift on the point of view does not help at all, it just puts together an bigger amount of pages (I think this could be a good short story instead of a novella). In fact if you, dear reader want to know all the plot avoiding some gory details and redundance, just read the final fifteen or ten pages and there you go.
I was expecting something stronger, darker, nastier, and I found gay porn with a doze of drama (I understand why they compare this novel with Wuthering Heights), a bit of noir, and some nasty scenes like in some of the Books of Blood tales if I could give it another name it would be "The renderer always rings twice... in cold blood on Brokeback Mountain". And it also shares this role playing domination thing going on between men (something I have seen in Pasolini, Jarman and Fassbinder in their films, maybe it is a recurrent theme in gay people (?).
The subject is good but it could be dealt better. The other good thing was, that this brought me some refferences from other authors from very different styles which could mean he served as an influence somehow or as a pioneer in the way of picking such twisted plots. It does not have memorable quotes (at least I have not found one) nor memorable characters either, no, not even the infamous "renderer".
Should I recommended it? yep why not it is short and it can be read fast, although it might hurt some sensibilities. Will I go on with Purdy's work? definitely I like the fact he wants to tell a story about outcasts of society, or maybe about odd people and odd situations, but I hope he does not sound with that high level of commiseration like the one he had on this book, I expect him to be more crude and less dramatic, besides if this is his most shocking I think all the others will be piece of cake. To conclude this is an odd piece but it does not mean that it worths a lot money .
This was supposed to be my warming up book to read Jean Genet's work, which, by what I have read, is hardcore compared to this, but we'll see how I deal with that. It has more flaws than virtues but I think the virtue prevails above them, and that is, that this book is a page turner, you become interested on the story and in spite the way he picks some words for his narration (he should have changed his name for James Wordy) the rhythmn is steady and it does not make you feel tired.
Inconvenients, sure, first and foremost all the homo-erotic thing going on (which is disgusting for me as a mental image but that does not mean I am against LGBT rights and all they plead for, I do think they deserve equal treatment and can do with their lives whatever they want to do, but still homoerotic scenes have the same effect for my mind that to some people seeing blood or the smell of caviar, just that) but you just go on for the sake of the story.
His wording as I mentioned, I expected a more direct and raw style (i.e. all Jim Thompson or Dashiell Hammett as an example) but no, it is sometimes poetic, and corny and I don't like that. Yes I caught the rarified atmosphere around the story, twisted, sometimes hyperbolic (it reminded me of Clive Barker) and it has its merit.
The characters are confusing, which does not mean they are complex, they only know extremes and in the very last pages they lose all their personality (if the had one ever)to let the big plot lines speak in their voices, over and over again. The shift on the point of view does not help at all, it just puts together an bigger amount of pages (I think this could be a good short story instead of a novella). In fact if you, dear reader want to know all the plot avoiding some gory details and redundance, just read the final fifteen or ten pages and there you go.
I was expecting something stronger, darker, nastier, and I found gay porn with a doze of drama (I understand why they compare this novel with Wuthering Heights), a bit of noir, and some nasty scenes like in some of the Books of Blood tales if I could give it another name it would be "The renderer always rings twice... in cold blood on Brokeback Mountain". And it also shares this role playing domination thing going on between men (something I have seen in Pasolini, Jarman and Fassbinder in their films, maybe it is a recurrent theme in gay people (?).
The subject is good but it could be dealt better. The other good thing was, that this brought me some refferences from other authors from very different styles which could mean he served as an influence somehow or as a pioneer in the way of picking such twisted plots. It does not have memorable quotes (at least I have not found one) nor memorable characters either, no, not even the infamous "renderer".
Should I recommended it? yep why not it is short and it can be read fast, although it might hurt some sensibilities. Will I go on with Purdy's work? definitely I like the fact he wants to tell a story about outcasts of society, or maybe about odd people and odd situations, but I hope he does not sound with that high level of commiseration like the one he had on this book, I expect him to be more crude and less dramatic, besides if this is his most shocking I think all the others will be piece of cake. To conclude this is an odd piece but it does not mean that it worths a lot money .
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 23, 2012
Narrow Rooms is the usual twisted, overwrought fun that is James Purdy. With emotions maintained in the extreme range throughout, it comes across as kind of one note unlike some of his other work which is more leavened. Populating the book are the usual characters enslaved by their emotions, choosing the path that promises the greatest pain. This is Purdyverse (I assume someone already coined that) where no one has a will of their own and everybody has to prove their love with violence. Brotherly emotional incest appears briefly then is all but dropped in favor of an obsession which ricochets among four men. Unlike some of the other Purdy books, this one is densely populated by outright and admittedly gay characters. If only every one of these guys weren't an irredeemable idiot. I didn't like one thing that happened in this book, and I still love the book. That's the Purdy magic for you.
Even as I was enjoying it, I was reading it with dread. There is a straight razor on the cover. It's not there to tell us that happy times are ahead. And things do go from bad to worse, with the worst of it being written about with strange detachment. And I appreciate that since I don't want to wallow in rape and mutilation.
In the midst of all that, my favorite part is the lovers' quarrel in the truck on the way from one gruesome deed to another with the result of a gruesome deed along for the ride. It's just damn funny. That said, I don't think it would be healthy to read two Purdy books in a row.
Even as I was enjoying it, I was reading it with dread. There is a straight razor on the cover. It's not there to tell us that happy times are ahead. And things do go from bad to worse, with the worst of it being written about with strange detachment. And I appreciate that since I don't want to wallow in rape and mutilation.
In the midst of all that, my favorite part is the lovers' quarrel in the truck on the way from one gruesome deed to another with the result of a gruesome deed along for the ride. It's just damn funny. That said, I don't think it would be healthy to read two Purdy books in a row.
April 23, 2015
Every so often I read a book that I cannot fault on its technical merits, but which leaves me utterly cold. Narrow Rooms is such a book. Purdy can surely write well, and tell a story skillfully. I have no problem whatsoever with the explicit sexual content. But none of the characters are people I would care to know. And the book left me with nothing but distaste for humanity. All in all, this isn't remotely what I'm looking for in my leisure reading.
January 23, 2020
Overwrought, implausible tale of rural (West Virginia) same-sex desire, obsession, and murders. Grim, grotesque, and off-the-tracks over the top. Insulting and silly.
June 29, 2024
Idk if i should even be rating this because it is the most disturbing thing i think i have ever read. but on that note it is quite interesting in the exploration of small town community, myths, folklore etc and how the past leaves some with a curse. and also how love can ruin as much as it can create. and the humanity and emotion in true evil. i’m just so confused and disturbed and will never read this again but i will be thinking about it for a long time
May 8, 2025
Nope.
February 9, 2022
This was a very strange novel, but also very haunting and beautiful and rings true. A great achievement.
April 28, 2025
3.5
RIP james purdy
you would’ve LOVED problematic yaoi manhwa my god this was crazy
RIP james purdy
you would’ve LOVED problematic yaoi manhwa my god this was crazy
October 2, 2015
I have no enthusiasm to finish this. I don't like the characters, and I am not enjoying the story. I normally like my fiction on the darkside, but this just isn't my cup of tea.
October 26, 2017
Gay Melodrama Insanity.
August 23, 2024
four gay men who fuck but also want to kill each other and it's deeply unhinged and gory and ridiculous and doesn't make any sense, you gotta be there for the ride
September 19, 2024
it’s two o’clock in hell
September 12, 2023
"The two men held one another in a perfervid embrace such as angels might be capable of but which men are said to have lost."
a strange, strange little book. it's like if greek tragedy or an episode of the bible took place between gay men in rural appalachia. the prose is almost biblical in its spare gravity. purdy's dialogue is particularly impressive. the characters' words are the engine of the book; they declare, command, scream, beg to each other and the plot--nonsensical as it is at times--falls into place around their mountain talk. it's weird, but it all works. purdy's blending of young-adult melodrama with religious spectacle results in something apocalyptic, if not exactly believable.
"It was like they was angels."
a strange, strange little book. it's like if greek tragedy or an episode of the bible took place between gay men in rural appalachia. the prose is almost biblical in its spare gravity. purdy's dialogue is particularly impressive. the characters' words are the engine of the book; they declare, command, scream, beg to each other and the plot--nonsensical as it is at times--falls into place around their mountain talk. it's weird, but it all works. purdy's blending of young-adult melodrama with religious spectacle results in something apocalyptic, if not exactly believable.
"It was like they was angels."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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