The Complete Fiction of W. M. Spackman

by W.M. Spackman, Steven Moore (Editor)

Described by Stanley Elkin as "this country's best-kept literary secret" and "a lost American classic," W. M. Spackman is one of the finest writers of the twentieth century. This omnibus edition includes all five of the author's previously published "Heyday" (and here presented with revisions the author made shortly before his death); and the critically acclaimed novels published between 1978 and 1985: "An Armful of Warm Girl" (1978), "A Presence with Secrets" (1980), "A Difference of Design" (1983), and "A Little Decorum, for Once" (1985). The novel "As I Sauntered Out, One Midcentury Morning" is published here for the first time, as well as the author's only two short stories.

Genres: Fiction, Literature

640 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1997

Reviews

[Josh Friedlander · Rating 3 out of 5]

"This country's best-kept literary secret", says no less a luminary than Stanley Elkin. Well. He is singular, erudite and original: but also single-minded in all his writing (this is a 600 pp book, but contains all of his fiction, mostly written in a burst in his final decade). Alternately jubilant and cynical tales of love, often between young women and older men. Not that the women are less fleshed out or passive. But it does get a bit dull.

The term "middle-class morality" implies an aristocracy unconcerned with moral signalling, with nothing to prove. Spackman's character's embody this. They sometimes work vaguely as writers (though one is a banker, to be fair), travel frequently, and enjoy lives of privileges and adulterous affairs. Drawing on themes from Ovid, Restoration comic dramatists like Wyatt, and a handful of French writers (these origins are traced by Steven Moore in an afterword, but frequently invoked in the books themselves), Spackman describes writes defenses of carefree cuckoldry and lovers sunning themselves before the grave beckons. Seeing these books as representative of such an old tradition may excuse how astonishingly retrograde their social politics seem to us.

Spackman would wish to be judged on style, and he certainly delivers. Almost every page will send you to a dictionary, and unless you are fluent in Classics and Romances (WMS was a Rhodes scholar and sometime Classics professor), you will need several types. The prose here is not comparable to anything written today. I'm just not sure I needed so much of it in one go.

A final note: I saw Spackman's Collected Essays on a recent pilgrimage to Three Lives and Company , apparently it too has been recently published by Dalkey Archive.

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Spack" was my literary mentor. It is a great pity that so few people have read this book. It's true that Spackman was of another era, but he was a great literary stylist, a winner of the Vursall Award when it meant something, when style wasn't confused with showing off. He was also very funny. And he was published by Knopf.

Spackman isn't for everyone. The title of one of his novels is An Armful of Warm Girl. Enough said. But his women are certainly less silly than his men. His fiction is for pleasure.

Spackman wrote some when he was young, but all of his best work was written in his late 70s and 80s.

Rather than comparing Spackman with other authors, let me list three of his favorites, all of them stylists: Henry Green, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Muriel Spark.

Start with A Little Decorum for Once or A Difference of Design. For those who love old-fashioned and singular literary style, Spackman will be a great find.

[Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was wandering through the Literature section of a local bookstore sometime in the late 90s, looking at the "usual suspects" (Amis, Davies, Borges, Powell, and so on), really just checking out their selection, not expecting to find anything new, when I thought: "I'll bet I can stump them. Let's see if they have any W. M. Spackman!". Spackman is one of my secret pleasures: a rather little-known writer, born in 1905, died 1990, who published 5 novels, _Heyday_ in the early '50s, then 4 very short, utterly charming, stories of men and woman and guiltless affairs, published from 1978 through 1985. Spackman was a Philadelphian, at a guess "Main Line" or very close, very patrician, rather academic (he was a professor by main career), seemingly quite well off. His later novels (the early Heyday is somewhat uncharacteristic: sadder, dealing with younger people), are all concerned with older (and very well-off) men (usually in their 50s) in guilt-free adulterous relationships with younger women (from late teens to 40s in the various books). As such they have always struck me as full of wish-fulfillment. On the other hand, it's a wish that part of me secretly shares. Moreover, the prose style of these novels is stunning, gorgeous, complex, utterly elegant: worth reading almost as poetry.

Anyway, I had assumed (rightly until this book) that Spackman's stuff was OP: over time I've tracked down the novels in used book stores, but I've had a secret hope that I missed one, or that there might be short stories, or ... anyway something!

Went over to the S's. No expectations of success whatsoever. And what do I see: _The Complete Fiction of W. M. Spackman_. All five published novels (Heyday in a much revised form that he was working on when he died), one never-published novel, and two short stories!

What a find! This was new then, published in 1997 by The Dalkey Archive Press. And I should plug that publisher: they seem to have been formed to republish the works of Flann O'Brien (another of my "secret pleasures", though O'Brien is actually quite well known), as they take their name from the title of one of O'Brien's novels, but they also publish a number of other very deserving writers.

And Spackman is very deserving indeed. As I have said he is most obviously notable for his bravura prose, but his characters are well-limned, and the events are funny and interesting. And behind all the blithe lovemaking is the shadow of aging and coming death: even in Heyday, which is about people in their 20s. Beautiful stuff.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first heard about this author from Rich Horton. Now that I think of it, I’ve only heard about this author from Rich, but the buildup that Rich gave him forced me to pick up the Dalkey Archive complete collection of his works. I’m not very familiar with the Dalkey Archive, but from what I can tell, they are a non-profit or collective determined to keep worthy literature in print in inexpensive editions, mostly trade paperback (the name of the press is from a novel by Flann O’Brien). Spackman is a Harvard man who graduated from college just before the Depression, wrote and published his first novel at the age of 45, then had to wait over twenty years before his second was accepted. That novel, An Armful of Warm Girl (what a wonderful title!), received enough critical acclaim that he published three more novels in the succeeding years.

Heydey is that first novel, published in 1953, printed here in a revised form that the author had not completed before his death. The setting is New York City during the Depression and the characters are Harvard grads trying to live their dreams in a world that has all but collapsed. They take solace in alcohol and sex in an endless string of late night parties and rendezvous (is that the plural of rendezvous?). Imagine a Thorne Smith novel with no supernatural elements and a Harvard education.

I loved it, finishing it in two reading sessions. The style is the sort of thing I try to achieve in my own fiction–a balance between exposition and dialogue that alternates between insight and wit. The structure is oblique, to be nice, but revealing once we achieve the finale. At times, you wonder what does it all mean, but then, that may be the point.

There are some similarities between Spackman and Anthony Powell (another favorite of Rich’s), including the focus on gossip and the “dance” of a group of people who step through life, changing partners or standing by the wall spilling punch. Powell, though, is so understated that his dance seems hidden, lost in the intricacies of its creation; Spackman, while not explicit, is like the best 1940s screwball comedy, teasing the censor with a playfulness that is sans malice.

It seems fairly obvious to me that Heydey is autobiographical (again, like Anthony Powell’s dance). As the advice goes, Spackman started writing by writing what he knew. I look forward to reading the rest of the novels in this collection to see if they contain the same strange combination of joi de vivre and world-weariness.

[Leo]

I have only read An Armful of Warm Girl so far, not the entire book, so my review only reflects that. I would say I'm not quite so enthusiastic as some reviewers, and I'd say it's quite generous to compare Spackman to Faulkner, but there is much to say about this author.
Spackman has a very unique style, a way with words, and a vocabulary that is unmatched. The fact that he can use words like "hagiolatrous", "apodeictic", and "ullaged" without sounding like some sophomore with a thesaurus and too much time is a testament unto itself.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-reading Spackman was a joy! Although his short pieces and his last novel were not quite as delicious as his Presence, Difference and Little Decorum, his three really great novels, still worth reading indeed - such a prose stylist!

[Spencer]

note to self: try to find the novel of his with the Edmund White introduction

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stylist fiction from a man who didn't publish until very late in life. Unfailingly unique sentences and dialogue.