Alp: A Macabre Comedy

by William Hjortsberg

"Quite possibly the finest comic novel written in America," was Thomas McGuane's enthusiastic assessment. Alp was written in Bolinas during the summer of '68. A chapter from the first, "Sometimes Horses Don't Come Back," appeared in the Random House collection: Prize College Stories, '63. A comic fantasy set in a make-believe Switzerland peopled with foolish mountain climbers, trolls, witches, honeymooners.

Genres: Fiction, Novels

152 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

William Hjortsberg was an acclaimed author of novels and screenplays. Born in New York City, he attended college at Dartmouth and spent a year at the Yale School of Drama before leaving to become a writer. For the next few years he lived in the Caribbean and Europe, writing two unpublished novels, the second of which earned him a creative writing fellowship at Stanford University.

When his fellowship ended in 1968, Hjortsberg was discouraged, still unpublished, and making ends meet as a grocery store stock boy. No longer believing he could make a living as a novelist, he began writing strictly for his own amusement. The result was Alp (1969), an absurd story of an Alpine skiing village which Hjortsberg’s friend Thomas McGuane called, “quite possibly the finest comic novel written in America.”

In the 1970s, Hjortsberg wrote two science fiction works: Gray Matters (1971) and Symbiography (1973). The first, a novel about human brains kept alive by science, was inspired by an off-the-cuff remark Hjortsberg made at a cocktail party. The second, a post-apocalyptic tale of a man who creates dreams, was later published in condensed form in Penthouse.

After publishing Toro! Toro! Toro! (1974), a comic jab at the macho world of bullfighting, Hjortsberg wrote his best-known novel, Falling Angel (1978). This hard-boiled detective story with an occult twist was adapted for the screen as Angel Heart (1987), starring Robert De Niro. Hjortsberg also wrote the screenplay for Legend (1986), a dark fairy tale directed by Ridley Scott. In addition to being nominated for an Edgar Award for Falling Angel, Hjortsberg has won two Playboy Editorial Awards, for which he beat out Graham Greene and Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez. His most recent work is Jubilee Hitchhiker (2012), a biography of author Richard Brautigan. Hjortsberg lives with his family in Montana.

Learn more at: http://www.openroadmedia.com/authors/...

Reviews

[🐴 🍖]

not quite the laff riot it's touted as but nonetheless p appealing for a novel that features, e.g., a cannibal dwarf & death by stork. jacket copy likens it to a snowball growing as it rolls downhill & imo that's a big part of the attraction... somehow it seems a natural progression from yodeling & ice sculptures to the less savory elements cited supra. neat trick; read alongside wolfgang bauer's the feverhead for the full "i'm overdosing on benadryl at a ski chalet" effect

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember it as a funny, erotic, black comedy kind of story. Would like to get my hands on a kindle edition to read again.

[D Grader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Working in a climbing specialty store in the early 1970's, our bookshelf had a great variety, from old chronicles of legendary ascents, to off-kilter things like "Alp." Around the time of Mel Brooks' greatest like "Young Frankenstein," I read "Alp" and wondered if Hjortsberg was an alias, but also envisioned a Brooks treatment with Dennis Quaid, Terry Garr, and others of his stock troupe plugged into the juiciest roles. It was both outrageously tawdry, naughty, rambunctious, but cleverly spoofing the genres of macho mountaineering tomes and climbers themselves - while actually being more accurate and authentic than the worst dribble turned into Hollywood cliches like "Cliffhanger" or "Vertical Limit."
A shame it never was given that opportunity, as it could possibly have been a melding of Terry Southern's meh "Candy," "Dr. Strangelove," and all of Brooks' best. Too narrow a niche focus group, no doubt, but readers might gain by envisioning such a visual parody as they turn the pages.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absurdity and disastrous serendipity at a European ski resort.

[Glen U · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is Hjortsberg first published novel. It's a black comedy about a group of different characters at a Gausthaus in The Alps. While there are parts that are amusing, it is not humorous enough to be a comedy. The dark parts of the book are neither novel nor ironic, just dark. There are glimpses of the skills he will use in writing his cult classic, "Falling Angel", but for this piece, just average.

[Kim Zinkowski]

"What cares the hungry man for the shape of the bowl?"