Those Who Perish

by Edward Dahlberg

About the Author Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977) was born in Boston. He was placed in a Cleveland, Ohio orphanage in 1912 and enlisted in the army during the last days of World War I. He received a degree from Columbia University then became part of the community of expatriate American writers in late-1920s Paris. Later in his career, he devoted considerable time to literary study and criticism, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1976.

Genres: Fiction

Unknown Binding

First published December 1, 1934

About the author

His first novel, Bottom Dogs, based on his childhood experiences at the orphanage and his travels in the American West, was published in London with an introduction by D. H. Lawrence. With his advance money, Dahlberg returned to New York City and resided in Greenwich Village. He visited Germany in 1933 and in reaction briefly joined the Communist Party, but left the Party by 1936. From the 1940s onwards, Dahlberg made his living as an author and also taught at various colleges and universities. In 1948, he taught briefly at the experimental Black Mountain College. He was replaced on the staff by his friend and fellow author, Charles Olson.

He was an expatriate writer of the 1920s, a proletarian novelist of the 1930s, a spokesman for a fundamental humanism in the 1940s. For a number of years, Dahlberg devoted himself to literary study. His extensive readings of the works of Dante, Shakespeare, Thoreau and many others resulted in a writing style quite different from the social realism that characterized his earlier writing.

He moved to the Danish island of Bornholm in 1955 while working on The Flea of Sodom. The Sorrows of Priapus was published in 1957, becoming his most successful book thus far. He later moved to Mallorca, while working on Because I Was Flesh, an autobiography which was published in 1964. During the 1960s and 1970s, he became quite prolific and further refined his unique style through the publication of poetry, autobiographical works, fiction and criticism.

Reviews

[Patrick St-Amand · Rating 3 out of 5]

***3.5 stars***

Intersecting vignettes of various Jewish people during the time of the New Deal in NYC and the distant news if the rise of Nazism. Interesting read even if i didn't feel a connection to the material.