A Fan's Notes

A Fan's Notes #1

by Frederick Exley, Jonathan Yardley (Introduction)

Frederick Exley's inimitable "fictional memoir" A Fan's Notes has assumed the status of a classic since its first publication in 1968. Mordantly and poignantly, Exley describes the profound failures of his life; professional, sexual, and personal. His attempts to find a place for himself in an unaccommodating world take him from the University of Southern California to Chicago, where he meets the dangerously seductive, lovely, Bunny Sue Allorgee, to New York City's Greenwich Village saloons, and back to Watertown, his hometown in upstate New York, where he spends months on his mother's living room davenport watching television before undergoing shock treatment at Avalon Valley hospital. Between bars, women and jobs, Exley exercises his obsession with the New York Giants and their great halfback Frank Gifford, until he at last realizes his life's ambition: writing A Fan's Notes, an Institute of Arts and Letters' Rosenthal Award for "that work which...is a considerable literary achievement." It was described by Robert Penn Warren as "a moving and memorable book," by Michael Crichton as "a devastating novel," and by William Gass as "an instructive, powerful and bruising experience." In Newsweek, Jack Kroll wrote that the novel is "a welcome reminder of what the basic business of literature and of living really is. All fans of life and art should read it." This Modern Library edition includes an Introduction by Frederick Exley's biographer, Washington Post book critic and columnist Jonathan Yardley. A Fan's Notes was nominated for a National Book Award, won the William Faulkner Award for "the year's most notable first novel," and was awarded the National Academy...

Genres: Fiction, Sports, Literature, Novels, Literary Fiction, American, Classics

425 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Frederick "Fred" Exley was a critically lauded, if not bestselling, author. He was nominated for a National Book Award for A Fan's Notes, and received the William Faulkner Award for best first novel, as well as the Rosenthal Award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters

He was a guest lecturer at the Iowa Writer's Workshop in 1972 and won a Playboy Silver medal award in 1974 for best non-fiction piece for "Saint Gloria & The Troll," an excerpt from his book Pages From Cold Island.

His later work also earned him a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, a Harper-Saxton Fellowship, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

Exley died of a stroke at 62 in 1992.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fredrick Exley (1929-1992) – Photo of the writer as a vulnerable, sensitive young man. In many ways, much too vulnerable and sensitive for mid-20th century American society, a society where a man’s prime virtue is being tough.

A Fan's Notes is the odyssey of one man’s unending heartbreak and retreat into an inner world of fantasy and dreams, a retreat, by his own account and language, punctuated by alcoholism and trips to the madhouse; or, put another way, an autobiographical novel about Fredrick Exley’s longtime failure in the years prior to when he finally staked his claim to fame by writing a memoir about his aching, painful life.

First off, let me say bellying up to a bar, drinking, smoking, commiserating, cheering for a sports team while watching a game is not me, which is understatement. I recall walking into a bar when in college and found the whole scene sour and depressing. I haven’t even come close to stepped into a bar once in the past nearly fifty years.

I mention since the Fred Exley in this fictional memoir is a bargoer who drinks, smokes, commiserates, and obsessively cheers for a sports team – the New York Giants. For these reasons and others, including much of the way he talks about women, I do not particularly like the main character.

However, this being said, A Fan’s Notes is a well-written literary gush, reminding me more of Henry Miller than Charles Bukowski, a compelling, excruciatingly honest personal saga, overflowing with keen insights into human nature and caustic observations on American culture, a book I found, for a number of personal reasons, deeply moving when I first read back in 1988 published as part of the Vintage Contemporaries series.

Rereading these past few weeks, I must say I enjoying every well-turned phrase and outrageous, boldfaced, audacious twisting of fact into fiction: author’s self-portrayal as a slovenly lout, alcoholic slob, misogynist pig, lowlife outsider, misfit and complete loser, not to mention misty-eyed dreamer and weaver of fantastic delusions. At the point when Freddie Ex finally pulled his life together enough to begin seriously writing, he probably had more than a few good chuckles and a few shed tears with each draft.

The first personal reason I found this novel moving back in 1988 is very personal: at the time I was having a mid-life crisis, working with a spiteful, nasty boss and unpleasant coworkers in what turned out to be, for me, the wrong career. I had to make a serious change and Exley’s novel, especially those parts where he reflected on the insanity of work world USA, served as something of a literary friend through it all, right up until the time when I made a successful switch.

The second reason has to do with my friend Craig, a sensitive, vulnerable, highly artistic man who reminded me a great deal of Fred Exley. Actually, very much like Exley, Craig worked in the advertising industry, was fired because of drinking, and after marrying and having a couple kids, divorced and, like Exley, returned to live in the basement of his parent’s house. Turns out, Craig was simply too sensitive to function in the “normal” world. And similar to Exley, he idolized Hemingway and tried writing the Great American Novel but, unfortunately, he was no Exley – his writing, right up to the day he dropped dead of a massive heart attack at age 55, was overly sentimental and downright awful.

I relate personal reasons since my guess is Exley’s A Fan’s Notes enjoyed an initial cult following comprised of men (and perhaps women) who, like myself, were either going through a phase of life-transition or those sensitive souls who, for a number of reasons, could never successfully function in conventional society. I also imagine many of these sensitive types, similar to my friend Craig, tried to write first-rate fiction but their efforts fell short. At least they could turn to A Fan’s Notes for some solace.

And I wonder how many of these sensitive souls had strong fathers like Fred Exley, when he writes, “Moreover, my father’s shadow was so imposing that I had scarcely ever, until that moment, had an identity of my own. At the same time I had yearned to emulate and become my father. I also yearned for his destruction.”

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reasons I should have liked this book:

»   It’s meant to be open, soul-searching and literary while at the same time appealing to my gender – the coarse one, that is.

»   It’s a somewhat fictionalized memoir by a die-hard NY Giants fan. Though they’re not my team, it was written at the time I was first gaining sports consciousness, learning that a skinny kid could somehow connect to the world of uncles if he knew how many yards Jim Brown gained against the Rams.

»   It supposedly set the stage for Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, a book I really liked detailing lifestyles of the thirsty and laddish, supporting Arsenal football.

»   It won the 1968 William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel and was a National Book Award finalist.

Reasons I didn’t:

»   Its subtitle is A Fictional Memoir, but according to Wikipedia it follows the real events of Exley’s troubled, booze-sodden life pretty much to a tee. Whether the narrator was 9% Exley or 99%, it didn’t matter to me; I just didn’t like him. He was a bully and a butthead, his opinion of himself suffered Weimar Republic levels of inflation, and the list of his excuses for bad behavior was as lame as it was long.

»   Exley was a man’s man, which is OK in and of itself, but he was just so blatant in his hatred of women. He took great pleasure in hitting one for giving a dead-drunk friend of his a hard time. A good rule of thumb says that any guy you imagine using the “Quit bustin’ my balls” line is not confronting a problem, he is the problem.

»   There wasn’t nearly as much about what makes a sports fan tick as I was expecting. Hornby’s book was far better at that. All would have been forgiven, of course, had the more general self-characterization won me over. While Exley did do a decent job of identifying some of his many flaws, he was often less than sincere owning up to them – an egoist through and through.

»   It disappoints me that this book has a cult following. Somebody even opened a bar named after him. To me, that would be like the Lance Armstrong Sports Nutrition Shoppe.

»   Exley’s writing talent has been praised, often by Exley himself, but I found a fair amount of it clunky and overcooked. The adverbs were the worst offenders. (E.g., anguishingly solemn, an unbridledly dear price, admonitorily advising) To veraciously tell you the truth, it made me surpassingly peevish and dampeningly unsatisfied.

A token attempt to be fair:

»   Some of the writing wasn’t bad. The best parts tended to confess things. This line describing his short-term, ill-fated teaching experience was one of his best: “Sadly, I lacked the intelligence to simplify, and with an utterly monolithic and formidable pedantry I thought nothing of demanding that my students feed me back my own quackery.”

»   Exley’s father was a locally famous athlete with a competitive streak that made me think that the defeated son came by his hang-ups honestly.

»   Alcoholism is a disease. Maybe the poor excuses, offensive behavior, and irresponsibility are just common symptoms, and a book that shows this clearly is just being true to type.

»   It’s not necessary to like the narrator to like the book. For me, though, it often helps. While I can easily appreciate a memoir showing how to be, I also want to be open to one showing truthfully (and wartfully, if you can forgive my newly attained habit for bad adverbs) how certain people simply are.

But who ever said Goodreads ratings had to be fair?

2.5 stars rounded down ill-naturedly to 2

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frederick Exley belongs among those champions who after ruining one’s life spends years trying to climb out of shit and for this strenuous endeavour is considered to be a valiant and sagacious hero…
He was an incorrigible dreamer, romantic visionary. He believed the world couldn’t wait to throw its arms around him…

I was willfully acting in such a way as to alienate myself. But I doubt the validity of this. I had large faith—the faith of youth—in the city’s capacity to absorb me, hair-do and all; and it was only after summer was gone and autumn was casting long shadows that I began to take these rejections as personal affronts. It is very wearing to be honest, no matter how naïve or misreckoned that honesty is, and continue to be spurned for it. After a time it becomes numbing, like heavy, repeated blows to the face.

To erase a borderline between dreams and reality he starts drinking, he hides behind his fantasies…

Constantly one yearned to dispel the reality in favor of the idyllic. But then that other sound would come, that wail.

And he finds himself astray in the inimical hedonistic society, and he hates it and tries to fight back but just goes under yet deeper. He turns desperate and cynical…

I read, or glanced at, only those articles about cinema starlets nobody has ever heard of. These pieces fascinated me for their subjects were well on their way to becoming insane… The girls were part of America’s plenty and, once used, one disposed of them the way one got rid of a Cadillac and moved on to an Aston-Martin.

A Fan's Notes are permeated with the beat generation bravado and bitterness of deceived expectations. But Frederick Exley is an honest writer and his truth is full of squalor and pain.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about sports like Macbeth is about witches. Which is to say, it's just a vehicle for the real action, which is all internal. A gorgeous, eloquent song to despair and alcoholism and redemption. Its ravishing language will rip your heart out.

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book about sports. If you don't know who Frederick Exley is -- and I didn't till I found it among Thomas' books (or was it a recommendation from him...? - well, either way...) -- then don't not read it because you think it's about sports. It has nothing to do with sports, except that that is one of the author's obsessions -- but he could just as well be obsessed about anything else (and he is)... there is very little discussion about sports in it.

Frederick Exley, as his friend Jonathan Yardley said, had one brilliant book in him -- and tore himself apart to get it out of himself. Obsession, mental illness, raw honesty (ultimately), alcoholism... and what a book, it is! It is about one man's search for just a corner of authenticity in an America (of the late 50's, early 60's) that was already becoming wholly inauthentic.

I recently criticised some of these SF writers I've been reading for writing too much, too fast -- All it takes is one book to justify a life -- if it's a real book -- it's that fucking hard to pull either some honesty out of the soul, covered with accretions like Proteus, or to find that little kernel of even objective truth hidden amidst all the sophistry and bullshit. One REAL..., one good book -- and you've paid your debt. In full.

Exley, imo, is paid up.... In full.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is not fear of self-scrutiny which typically causes me to dislike books about a character's dissolution. It's the ennui. So, Hamsun's Hunger and Celine's Journey to the End of the Night wear me down. Don't laugh, but I prefer my nihilism more chipper.

Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes transports the dissolute soul. True, there are moments where the book sags and other times where it seems that Exley is writing what I should have said in some confrontation. But this book is sheer brilliance. First in the author's complete ownership of the English language and how he uses it. Second in the way Exley weaves in literary allusions. And lastly, that this book is about so much more than one man's utter starvation. Like the protagonist's obsession (Frank Gifford), there is comeback. Who knew that Chuck Bednarik could actually serve as a metaphor for the decadence of American culture?

The book weaves back and forth through the protagonist's life. So, it's not one straight downhill plunge. There is humor and self-awareness enough to render the alcoholism not so much an ending but just the drug that it is, to still a mental fatigue as a man fights so hard not to be Prufrock.

[Cody · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jesus, Lord; you’d think Exley invented alcoholism or hospitalization with the way he goes on. Curse my inability to not finish a book. Maybe it’s my own personal familiarity with the subject matter, but I can’t be convinced Exley does anything here but aggrandize shit behavior and not uncommon malady to heights legitimizing his election as a pseudo-dandified asshole. The noxious spit hurtled at every female in the book is almost codified enough to organize a worship system around, so I get why so many dudes dig this. I’m not one of them. Ditto on the author’s commentariette regarding sexual preference. Trust me, I’m not that evolved: he’s that retarded in maturation.

I used to drink ‘heroically’ as well. I no longer do, nor have I in many years. Never once in that time did it occur to me that any of you need be infected with the beer and tear-stained pages of my youthful wreckage disguised as ‘fictional memoir.’ It strikes me as the height of egoism that anyone would labor this hard to justify their ‘madness’ as anything other than what it is: the hand, dealt—move the fuck on.

Man-child-bibliophile ba-ba-bullshit. Whining, genuflecting Literature of the Me.

[Jon Adcock · Rating 3 out of 5]

So what’s A Fan’s Notes about? It’s about football, Frank Gifford, and the trials and tribulations of the tortured artist who looks around him and feels contempt and revulsion for the society he’s alienated from. It’s the howl of the misanthropic misfit who doesn’t fit in and rages against the drones who do. Is it any good? Parts of it are. There are plenty of passages that are brilliantly written, with rich language and a spot on critique of modern society. In some ways, this book reminds me a lot of Charles Bukowski’s Ham on Rye. Both writers were misanthropic alcoholics alienated from society, but there’s a underlying poignancy to Bukowski’s writing that’s missing from this book. I could see running into Bukowski in a bar and buying him drinks while I listened to his stories, rants, and raves. If I had run into Exley, I could see myself changing bar stools after a bit, probably to the opposite end of the bar.

This is a book that’s considered a “cult classic.” A book that other writers raved about when it was published and strangers pressed into people’s hands to read. The book is subtitled a “fictional memoir”, but it’s largely Exley’s semi-autobiography and while it does touch on his childhood a bit, it mostly covers his 20’s and early 30’s. Instead of a linear narrative structure, it’s mostly a jumble of vignettes that jump all over the place in time. After a few pages, Exley will say “let me tell you about the time I was committed to the mental hospital” and he’ll then spend quite a bit of time describing his stay there. Then he’ll talk about his childhood and a hundred pages or so later, he gets around to telling about the events that lead up to being committed.

My biggest issue with the book is that while Exley, like Bukowski, did have a troubled life filled with a lot of pain, he comes across as an asshole most of the time and that just doesn’t lend itself to feeling very sympathetic towards him. He’s very homophobic and makes disparaging comments about “fags” and “faggots” a lot in the book. I get that the book takes place in the relatively unenlightened 50’s and early 60’s and some allowance needs to be made because of that, but I also found him to be something of a misogynist. Like a few guys I’ve known in my life, Exley talks about women a lot, but really, when it comes down to it, doesn’t like them much:

“These were, for me at least, days of lust - days in which, for the first time since my rejection by the girl back east, my moroseness had vanished and I discovered I was not altogether unattractive to women. I sat in those saloons with them sipping highballs, and through the muted light of the place whispered outrageous falsehoods into their pink ears. My hand dropped into their laps to feel their thighs tighten and reject my fingers with the rigidity of their virtue. Continuing to whisper and sip my drink, I felt the flesh go submissive, and had to restrain myself from laughing. If I took them home – and occasionally after the thighs went loose as sand and the challenge no longer provoked me, I packed them off in cabs – they always fought, pounding, not fiercely, their tense little knuckles against my chest, to which I smilingly said, “Cut the shit.” I took them on the floor and on the couch and in the bathtub, took them greedily, perfunctorily, pointlessly, took them while they wept and said no, no, no”

More than a little creepy and for all his railing about society in the novel, the women he wants are the ones that society has told him to want: the thin, leggy blondes who grace the centerfolds and Madison Avenue advertisements that surround him.

Yet, there are passages that are well written and offer up some succinct critiques of American society. After being fired from his job and moving around the country drinking and working odd jobs, Exley comes back to live with his mom and finds himself mesmerized by the daytime Soap Operas. Lying on her couch all day, he watches them and sees them as a microcosm of the world around him.

“The world of the soap opera is the world of the Emancipated Woman, a creature whose idleness is employed to no other purpose but creating mischief. All these women had harsh crow’s feet about the eyes, a certain fullness of mouth that easily and frequently distended into a childish poutiness, and a bosomless and glacial sexuality which, taken all together, brought to their faces a witchy, self-indulgent suffering that seemed compounded in equal parts of unremitting menstrual periods, chronic constipation, and acute sexual frustration….If these women seemed drawn with an alarming accuracy, in their nonexistent way the men were even more to target and were not unlike the ballless men one sees every day on Madison Avenue. All wore button-down shirts and seemed excellent providers, all deferred to the women’s judgments and seemed unburdened with anything like thoughts”

Ignoring the heaping side dish of misogyny, his critique is sharp enough to draw blood, but it’s impact is lessened to some degree by the fact that’s it’s being said by a 26 year old, unemployed alcoholic who’s living in his mother’s basement.

Overall, I’m glad I read the book, but I really can’t recommend it to anyone.

[Trevor Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another reviewer writes, "Exley is basically an east coast Bukowski with the expected enhanced neuroses and over educated self obsession." If that sentence excites you, or if it turns you off, that just about does it in a sense for this one-hit sixties wonder (his other books truly are mediocre). On a personal level however, this book was so much more, as it struck a distinct chord in my brain and sent me spiralling into a season-length depression (aided by Richard Ford's terrible-yet-somehow-similar The Sportswriter) in which I read nothing but newspapers for three months. And how!

And, like the protagonist, I tended to yes open the sports and arts section prior to the actual front page. It was this act that gave me some retroactive sympathy for Exley's disgusting on-page persona, although during the book his blithering and self-loathing seemed subtle enough in congruence with my own I wrote it up to an idea that that is how all American males are. The ennui, restlesness, apathy, etc. etc. veering, in Exley's case, into full-bore alcoholic and schizoid deprivations. Like the protagonist, I later become mildly obsessed with the successes of the 2006 Mets, catastrophically dashing a bizarre odyssey of newly-found fandom for myself into panicky shards of beer-addled anxiety at the end of Beltran's immobile bat at the third strike from closer Adam Wainwright's filthy St. Louis Christian paw-- but, of course this condition of desperation and dangerously placing emotional investment in a sports franchise whilst undergoing personal existential crises and reading this book occurs today as something of the "chicken-or-egg" variety of rhetoric to me, and I prefer not to explore the issue very much anymore.

As to why a tale of an upstate New York do-nothing gradually becoming obsessed with Frank Gifford and the New York Giants should remain relevant at all to anyone living in 2006 (when I read it), the psychology of the "fan" rewrites itself here in testament to just how little such a state has to do with conformity, pop culture or even the results of blitz marketing (well, 'fandom' as it occurs in Exley's, and I suspect others, brain(s)).

Ok, well that is what a poorly written review looks like, and I really said nothing. There is nothing quotable in Exley's language-- I've tried isolating a few bon mots here and there, but to no avail, each dependent clause builds on the next in his mind, only remarking on its context as he shuttles from USC to NY to back home to insane asylum and so on-- and thus I can only say, just read the damn thing and maybe you'll see what I'm blabbling at, for, to or against.

[Bart · Rating 5 out of 5]

What makes this book so marvelous - and so much better than the others in the genre it launched - is how apparently unconscious it is of itself. It tells a story with self-deprecation, eloquence and wit, without any of the snide and self-consumed irony that clutters most memoirs.

The writing is marvelous. Not till about the 300th page does Frederick Exley reuse any of his other phrases, and only then does he forgivably recycle in all of Christendom. Page after page, a reader approaches the end of a sentence expecting one phrase and finding another.

Here's my favorite sentence from A Fan's Notes (though there are at least nine others I like about as well):

By the time of contact it was getting light, very cold, with that glacial, white world spread all about one on the lonely road; and one didn't dare look down in fear of seeing a half-dressed, broken-bra'ed, bedraggled, pimply, snot-nosed, shivery-assed creature feigning her conscience-inducing sleep, trying not to moan, as if indeed a scarcely erect, zipper-scraped, partially raw instrument could induce even tremors, not to mention ecstatic moans (in all truth it occurs to me now that if one girl had, on her parents' night at the Avon, taken me into her bedroom, taken off her clothes, and taken me into bed with her, I would have married her, got a job as a brakeman on the New York Central, raised eleven children, and lived happily ever after on pork chops and Genesee 12-Horse Ale).

And no apology follows. Perhaps that's the most charming part of the book. Not once does the author wink at you to let you know that, well, he's really just trying to be clever and literary. Though "Ex" desperately wants to be thought of as a writer - and this is where Henry Miller seems to precede him, some - he writes like he could care less about other writers' opinions and put-on sensibilities. Contrast that with most memoirs that have followed - written by persons who pretend not to care if they're outcasts, all the while bending their prose such that they won't get bounced from the stool of their favorite Village hotspot.

Here's an example of the latter sort of writing. It comes from David Gates' Jernigan, which, though it is a novel, is very much a part of Exley's genre:

Well, at least we hadn't made him a homosexual, although of course I knew that you didn't make someone a homosexual. But thinking about Rick you wondered if Judith might have been carrying a homosexual gene or something that was in the family. I was relieved that it had stayed recessive (if it existed) although that was wrong too, to feel relieved, because homosexuality was just another way of being.

That's what a bad, contemporary Exley impersonation looks like. For a sentence or two, the author puts away his dimwitted narrator and intrudes like crazy. If Exley were even capable of that sort of self-fascinated writing when he made A Fan's Notes, he certainly never let any of it sneak in.

A Fan's Notes is every good thing people say it is.

[Nathanimal · Rating 5 out of 5]

What's going on with me lately?

Usually I'm all: "Kafka this, kafka that, dalkey book, Stacey Levine, something french, kafka kafka kafka" ad nauseam. But so far this year it's been mostly cultural criticism and history, even a twinkle-dinkle of poetry (and I don't even know how to READ poetry). I could say I'm having a jolly cross-disciplinary time, but let's be honest: I'm having a literary meltdown.

Part of that meltdown is reflected in the only two works of fiction I've been able to finish lately, which have been Sheila Heti's How Should A Person Be? and Fred Exley's A Fan's Notes. These aren't books in translation nor books I'd at first consider experimental. They're near-memoirs. Real as realism gets. They're the kind of book I normally pass over for something more eccentric.

I don't know about you but when I think realism I think safe. And who want's that? I want an author who's going to drive me over the goddam cliff.

Well I have been driven over the goddam cliff, just not the cliff I'm used to, and perhaps that's the thrill. I don't really want to unpack Exley's book. I just want to say, from a guy like me, who has never watched a football game all the way through or cared to, who hasn't born the cross of alcoholism or done time on the funny farm, who has never been in an honest-to-god fist fight, who's never had much of anything to recommend his manliness, whose life is not necessarily in shambles, that this life, the life of Fred Exley, is one all peoples should read and recognize as their own.

That is to say, I get it. I get why Fred Exley puts himself back together long enough to get in front of a TV on Sunday and to bawl his head off for his favorite player on the New York Giants: "Oh God, he did it! Gifford did it! He caught the goddam thing!" It may sound like he's blaspheming, but he's not; he's having a god moment, a moment larger than himself, a moment which offers the possibility of salvation. It's more pertinent now than ever, the revelation Exley had, about the joys and sorrows of living in a world of vicarious spectacle, the joys and sorrows of being a fan. As an unpublished writer snooping around goodreads, I have my god moments, too.

The other thing I want to take away from this book is a caution to myself personally. The book is helped by an elevated, nigh Nabokovian style, which coming from a narrator with stains all over his sweats reads as crooning irony. I couldn't get enough of it. However, the highest irony of all is that this tweedy side, which Exley assumes through most of the book is going to save him, is actually the main problem. It's the illusion that pins him down and that will always pin him down, because he loves it. I have a tweedy side myself, a nice and musty smirking booky tweedy side. I'm thankful to Exley for helping me pick a fight with it.

Onward with the literary meltdown!

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible. A superhuman achievement on many levels. Exley turns an uncomfortably unflinching gaze on the abyss of depression & madness he passed thru & transforms it into the most breathtakingly beautiful art imaginable in the form of this book, a triumphant testament to one man's resilience and relentless pursuit of the writing craft. A fictionalized memoir, A Fan's Notes takes us from Exley's childhood in the shadow of a father who was a local hero to his misadventures in advertising, alcoholism, and his multiple trips to the madhouse in some of the most absolutely amazing prose I've ever encountered. Exley excels at setting up a scenario & methodically taking us thru it with great humor, tenderness, & a retroactive insight that is as rewarding as it is brutal. One scene in particular comes to mind involving a phone call made from a train station that is a small masterpiece in itself, but there are many such stretches to be found & savored here. Exley's frankness in confronting his shortcomings and failures would be reason enough to celebrate this book, but his absolute mastery of form and language takes it to the highest possible level.

[Josh · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF: 115 pages in and I couldn't take it anymore. This endless woe is me autobiography novel was over the top. The prose was unmistakably good, although at times the pretension was needless and unnecessary. I probably could've held out for the other 2/3's of the book and appreciated it if I actually gave a damn what was going on -- I just didn't care about his life. He wasn't even subtle about this being about him, which got on my nerve as well. The fact that there's two more of these is beyond me.

This will forever be on my bookshelf as there is a memory attached to it. As my wife and I were making our way on the Blue Ridge Parkway to Boone, NC from Asheville, NC, we happened upon a random bookstore called Little Switzerland Books & Beans in Marion, NC. It was a quaint, out of the way bookshop with mostly used books. Perusing the shelves, I came across this one and bought it for a small chunk of change. It was worth the memory and the time spent liking, then hating, then loathing, then whatever-ing the book as I put it back amongst many other books that will be there for a while.

[Julio Pino · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel of obsession is either the ultimate excursion into recursiveness---Exley the novelist, Exley the subject and Exley the public figure---all become one, or "the ultimate expression of narcissism", (Christopher Lasch, THE CULTURE OF NARCISSISM.) You decide.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jonathan Yardley's introduction explains that Frederick Exley had intended to publish A Fan's Notes as a memoir, but was asked to novelize it by Harper & Row, who feared libel actions. We have this amazing book, Yardley writes, a caustic masterpiece by a man who was essentially an alcoholic bum - he never held one job for more than a few months, he spent months or years crashing on other people's "davenports," including his parents' and various alumni of the mental hospital he had received treatment from: so where did this masterpiece come from? Exley was just a guy who had gotten interested in literature as an undergraduate at USC. Also, "no one knows for certain when and where he wrote it." This is a mystery with no witnesses!

The novel is a ruthlessly honest portrayal of an addict's narcissism and self-loathing (two traits which are inseparable). We never find out what Exley's mental illness was (apparently the hospital didn't either), but even as a confessional of someone who just can't seem to get up off the sofa it's painful enough reading, without having a precise diagnosis. Exley pinpoints the source of his malaise after a street fight he picks with two gay men, one white, one black: "I fought because I understood, and could not bear to understand, that it was my destiny - unlike that of my father, whose fate it was to hear the roar of the crowd - to sit in the stands with most men and acclaim others. It was my fate, my destiny, my end, to be a fan."

There's a relentless mid-century misogyny, an inability to see women (except one's mother) as anything other than Barbies with golden flanks, honeyed hair, and butterscotch epidermises. If women are not Barbies, they're intelligent but castrating Betty Friedans, or Amazonian harridans given battleship nicknames. Or, like Exley's fictional wife Patience, they're Bryn Mawr graduates who nonetheless need Exley's assistance writing up their reports for the divorce court judges they work for. The only sentient being Exley seems to know how to love with his whole heart is his mother's dog Christie III.

The best passages from A Fan's Notes are on a writerly par with the best of Roth, Mailer, and Bellow. My two favorite passages come from the chapter where Exley has moved to Chicago for one of the few jobs he will hold, this one in the public relations department of a railroad. In this first passage he perfectly captures the essence of a place; so perfectly, in fact, that the same passage could describe this neighborhood today if you replace "airline hostess" with "Groupon sales rep":

There I lived in that section called the Near North Side, a paradise for the young men and women - airlines hostesses with airlines hostesses, rising executives with rising executives, Junior Leaguers with Junior Leaguers, voyeurs with voyeurs - who overflowed its modern town houses and converted Victorian mansions, men and women who reigned, or were, in youth's obliviousness, sure they reigned supreme there. The section had an absurd though touching notion of itself as the Greenwich Village of the Plains; but the young men I knew there seemed blatantly and refreshingly unburdened with things of the mind, and the fine, corn-bred, yellow-haired girls as succulently wholesome as cream of chicken soup. Never once in the two years I lived there was I distressed by the possibility - as perhaps I was in New York - that there were men and women in the area seeking to commit to paper or to canvas their joy, their grief, their passion. Never once did I detect in a saloon, as I had begun to detect in the Village, the dark, brooding silhouette of a man apart, a man caught up and held in awe by the singularity of his vision.

In Chicago Exley meets and becomes obsessed with a young (yellow-haired) woman named Bunny Sue Allorgee, who takes him home to spend a weekend with her parents, who live in a scary dystopia:

The Allorgees lived in a suburb of a suburb, their particular little suburb being Heritage Heights. [As far as I'm aware, this is a made-up name.] It was a suburb that had apparently never caught on. The streets were all there, but there was only one house, Allorgees' Acres, a great, white, one-storied, rambling ranch-type place in which everything from garage to game room to hot-water heater was found on the single story that shot out in all sorts of clapboard arms, like the spokes of a painted wagon wheel. "The Heights" was not on any height at all; this was the American Midwest at its most grotesque, treeless and cold-looking as far as the eye could see, so that it only seemed set on high ground. There was only one thing that broke the endless blue monotony of the heavens - a television aerial that rose so high that it dizzied one to look up at it, an aerial which, I was proudly informed, put the Allorgees on certain clear days in contact with all parts of the Republic. It was a touching monument to their isolation. In answer to my question about its astounding height, Chuck (or Poppy) - as the father was interchangeably designated - said only that he liked "good reception."

[Hannah Garden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy moly you guys this is hell of bananas good. I accidentally started being in love with my neighbor and so it took me forever to finish but given more normal circumstances I'd've zipped through it like a regular greased kitten. A real roast beef hoagie of a book, slaaaam bangin.

[Minareadings]

La dernière page, on y est. Je relis le dénouement, petit sourire. Je resurvole le tout, m'arrête à une phrase vulgairement annotée, autre petit sourire. Voilà donc un énième livre qui s'ajoute à une catégorie que je considère -du moins en partie- fondatrice de ce que je suis, car débordant sur du personnel…débordant sur du vrai.

J'ignore la raison mais, j'ai cette manie de collectionner en moi ce qu'on qualifie de par chez nous de « ratés ». Je les collectionne quelque part, et les laisse, en d'intimes étrangers, discuter entre eux, l'histoire de l'un faisant écho à celle de l'autre. Ce qui me parle et est matière à réflexion, c'est de les voir tenter (et les procédés varient) de tutoyer la vie en une gaucherie touchante. Cette envie de vivre à petites vitesses, de se donner l'illusion d'une ascension contrôlée, tout en sachant que c'est plutôt une descente qu'ils entreprennent.

L'alcool a été l'illusion d'Exley, son feu. Et malgré le commun de la chose, si l'on s'attarde à détailler le fond, la nuance s'impose en évidence. Il n'est pas question de grandes aspirations, mais seulement d'une rage à posséder de plein droit ce qui semble élémentaire pour d'autres. C'est faisable si on n'est pas en surnombre là-dedans - de la cabeza je vous parle. Cela dit, quand cette condition manque, l'alcool devient en ce sens l'enveloppe d'un prolongement, celui d'un vide qui se dilate, pas d'un coup, mais en agonisant un peu.

D'excès en excès, se faire violence que ça se mue en normalité, et parfois, tâtonner dans cette lumière qu'un bref moment de sobriété offre, et s'étonner de voir que ce qu'on jugeait mort n'était qu'assoupi. Alors oser y croire de nouveau, à ce besoin d’appartenance, à cette douce image de son ombre, finalement guérie. Et tandis que la conviction s'affirme, s'élève en parallèle ce gris de tempête longtemps cultivé, et avec lui, de quoi le faire taire : un autre verre.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-reading it now after thinking about it unbiddenly recently and seeing a funky, weird old 60's mass-marketpaperback in a used bookstore in Amherst this weekend. I love those old covers, they're so gauche and semi-psychedelic. I saw one for a 60's edition of "The Critique Of Pure Reason" with hallucinogenic spirals all over the place, with the implicit allure to get in on a really heavy, groovy time, maaan.....

But I'm rereading it not for camp but for penance. I read this during a markedly fallow period in my life when "Exley"'s travails were more than sparkling in recognition. Wannabe writer, soused, sex-obsessed, going nowhere, filled with wholesome delusions, and not so wholesome bitterness, smart enough to know it's largely his own fault but Romantic enough to think that with wit and pluck and-maybe- secret genius he'll pull it all together in the end.


I'm a little older now. Moving. Preparing to sink into many varying writing projects which are and have been for far too long like magic cigarettes, smoke billowing invisibly in my mind's best intentions. Reading this again means not only to appreciate Exley's crystalline prose and exact, incisive observations, beautifully calibrated characterizations, and surprising social sweep but to re-visit previous ghosts of failure and inadequacy and, by reading, bid them adieu.

*

Just finished my second, closer and more attentive, appreciative reading. I was quietly and inexplicably and quenchingly moved. I'd cry, I'd like to cry in fact, but I don't.

[50 Cups of Coffee]

William Gaddis taught “Literature of Failure” at Bard College and the first book listed on the course’s syllabus was Frederick Exley’s A Fan’s Notes. Gaddis considered this “fictional memoir” a particular kind of masterpiece.

A Fan’s Notes follows the character, Frederick Exley, from bar to psychiatric hospital to relative’s davenport to football field stands to classroom to bar. Exley (the character, mind you) struggled to find a way to live outside of the enormity of his father’s shadow while he simultaneously struggled to find a way to live outside of the metrics of success. And while his expectations of the world are continually disappointed, the expectations he harbors for himself cannot ever be met. His dreams ballooned disproportionately and, “To sustain them I found that it took increasing and ever-increasing amounts of alcohol.” Exley is a romantic at heart, but the world doesn’t exist for romantics. And so his repeated pain and heartbreak transform into cynicism and pity.

Exley raged, with a Dylan Thomas-type rage, against the disappointments that the world continually provided. But he experienced something like subduction as the more he fought, the more he plummeted.

“I fought because I understood, and could not bear to understand, that it was my destiny—unlike that of my father, whose fate it was to hear the roar of the crowd—to sit in the stands with most men and acclaim others. It was my fate, my destiny, my end, to be a fan.”

Yet, convinced of his genius and capable of fence-scaling passion (which he has for both the English language and the New York Giants), he finds his destiny as a writer. And so he pounds out page upon page, forging art from lived experience.

“Like Beerbohm’s Felix Argallo, my thematic concern was to be pity, ‘profound and austerely tender pity.’”

But the book is never finished. His marriage cannot sustain itself. And fatherhood is a role that is over before it starts. His life continues to fill up with failures. His life is failure. And yet we have this book in our hands, a hilarious, hideous, and horrifying triumph.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was referred to read this misplaced gem by my former professor and compadre, Lee Irby. Thank the heavens for inter-library loans!

Exley reads like an educated Ignatius Reilly. I mean that in the most sincere way possible because I think Confederacy of Dunces is one of the shittiest books I've ever read. Exley as a narrator is well versed in the classics: Joyce, Hemingway (overrated), Orwell, Bill Shakespeare, Nabokov, Hawthorne, etc. and uses them as reference points to constellate his far-fetched adventures. Referring to the witches of Macbeth (198) brought back fond memories of High School English ("Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff. Beware the thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.")

The courtship of Bunny Sue was fun. The "sincerity" of Exley's letter (211) was a nice little tidbit.

My favorite chapter was, Who? Who? Who is Mr. Blue? I wonder if Tarantino got any ideas for Reservoir Dogs from this one.

This book was laugh out loud funny, especially all the dick jokes and cunnilingus conversations. The George Eastman story was also particularly funny (241).

The most powerful quote was:

"If it comes at all, Emerson has cautioned that one's call might not come for years. If it doesn't, he remarks it as only a reflection of the universe's faith in one's abstinence, nothing to move the heart to fret." (381)

I think Patience (the fictional character, rightfully named) serves as a metaphor for the validation all writers seek. The ending was equally poignant as oftentimes spirited writers just get lost in their own folly.

[Greg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could’ve been sub-titled, “Scattered stories about every person I’ve ever found to be even slightly interesting or totally repulsive. Most especially, Me. By Frederick Exley.”

I wanted to like this book. One of my favorite authors wrote a book based off it – “Exley” by Brock Clarke – and in order to get the full experience of that book I figured I needed to read this one first. And I kind of sort of regret it.

First and foremost, the protagonist is pretty vile and pathetic. He’s a textbook narcissist with no redeeming qualities. Normally such a character can be made worth reading if he grows and matures and hopefully eventually develops or finds some sort of redemption. Unfortunately this never happens here. We listen to Mr. Exley whine and bitch for the entirety of the book. He’s an aggressively unsympathetic character.

There are moments that Exley seems to hint at a faint glimmer of self-awareness, but these moments are lost in the torrent of fierce ego that dominates each and every sentence. It’s such a suffocating pride that even moments of good writing, humor, and intrigue are overwhelmed by it.

The most recurring theme is how much Exley hates what America has become in its emptiness and vanity. It wasn’t a new thought in the decades-ago when it was written and it’s arguably one of the most consistent literary laments there is. As long as people write they’re going to talk about how awful they think the world is and how it’s going to hell in a hand basket. It's a classic, even necessary cliche. Woe-is-me, yadda yadda yadda.

A reviewer on the dust jacket stated something along the lines of “Nobody should’ve had to have Frederick Exley’s life.” Oh, please. At least when other writers bellyache about the state of the world they have some suggestions to improve it or, barring that, they at least do something grand – even if selfish – with their own lives. Exley’s “solution” is to lie about on the couch and further waste an already-pathetic life. I really just can’t fathom him.

One thought I had is that maybe I didn’t like him because I don’t “get” him. That is, maybe without knowing it I have actually become a cog in this America that he hates so much. I don’t think that’s true, as I’m plenty cynical myself. But even if it were true – well, so what? A person’s ability to survive or worse, thrive in this world doesn’t make them bad or evil or awful in some way; it just means they’re adaptable and/or ambitious. That goes for the cynics just as much as those people that Exley probably thinks of as “lesser” merely by virtue of the fact that they fit nicely into this world. You can be a cynic without being a total and utter loser.

Cynical does not equal smart, just as optimism and hope does not equate to idiocy. This universe is humongous and we’re nothing but tiny little specks on specks on specks within it. We’re nothing, and we can’t bully the universe or rail against it enough to make it bend to our will. Hell, we can’t even hope that it’ll compromise with us. We have to learn to live with this universe – the universe doesn’t have to learn to live with us. It doesn’t even give a shit about us because it doesn’t even notice, and I think therein lay the truth that literary narcissists like our protagonist just can’t handle. You’ve just got to keep going whether you’re an optimist, pessimist, nihilist, whatever.

In other words, the whining do-nothings of this world deserve exactly what they get -- nothing -- because that's all they put into it.

Okay, sorry… just had to rant for a minute. Now back to some specifics.

He telegraphs much of the action, robbing even the few well written passages of intrigue and suspense. At the beginning of many of the little stories within he’ll tell you exactly what the outcome is and then proceed to tell you how it got to that point. This would be okay if the best parts were the details but unfortunately that’s not the case. I read many passages wondering what the point of his in-text spoilers were and feeling like I’d wasted time in bothering to read the journey when I’d already had the destination thoroughly explained.

This goes along with the pointless time-jumping. It’s impossible to keep up with the timeline of the story because he doesn’t even try to make it easy for you. He’ll be telling you about a string of events and then say, “That reminds me when…” and then jump back to another string from which the story continues until something else reminds him when and he jumps again. Not that the actual timeline itself really has any bearing on the story. Even if he wrote it all chronologically it still wouldn’t be a narrative of any sort.

Exley loves double negatives. For instance, something is never “like” something else. Rather, it’s “not unlike.” Used sparingly this kind of thing can at times sound more elegant or literary, but used as often as he does it starts to sound like a riddle as opposed to a sentence. This text positively cried out for a stricter editor, though I suppose that would’ve rendered it shorter by at least 50%.

Beyond that he’s just wordy generally. Often he seems so in love with his own writing that he stretches it to redundancy. E.g. – “That contact proved distressfully unsettling.” Why isn’t it just distressful or unsettling? This was just annoyingly irritating.

There are a few interesting vignettes here and there, and some genuinely good lines throughout – especially if you can endure through to the more reflective final chapters – but on the whole it’s a big chore and not really worth the effort required to dig up those relatively few gems. Even the ultimate sports-themed “point” of the story from which the title is derived is more of an I-guess-that’s-kind-of-interesting shrug than a revelation, even if you’re not already too tired to care by that stage.

Final analysis: if I wanted to spend copious amounts of time staring intently at an egomaniacal and obnoxiously self-aware sad sack I’d just sit in front of the mirror more often than I already do.

[Vonia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am uber glad to have found these two books pretty close together @ the bookstore, for the name "Exley", a somewhat rare name caught in my eye and I ended up getting both. As I began to read one of them, I felt the need to scan the other and immediately saw how obvious it was that they should be read together. The hunch was one hundred percent accurate. Brock Clarke's "Exley" complimented Fredrick Exley's "Fictional Memoir" by providing a reference for crucial references to specific quotes, conversations, scenes, and "inside meanings" in the text. Vice versa, the latter provided the ability to better appreciate the former. Brick Clarke's use of the book that supposedly changed his life in own novel was somewhat genius. At least quite experimental as far as I am aware. And a successful one at that. He wrote such an unexpectedly humorous interpretation of it that gave more meaning to Exley's obviously at least partial honest memoir.

In short Exley's memoir showed, by user of various vignettes/narrations for significant/deemed important, a quite wild and sick man. An alcoholic, a serious one, whom inevitable relapses a few times, managing in between to do some irrevocable ruination. He spends am insane amount of time laying in his davenport, doing absolutely nothing at all except occasionally contemplating deep philosophical beliefs. He meets some interesting characters at the residential hospital/treatment center named Avalon. He tells of his many excessive sexual encounters with women, almost none of which he truly loves. The only woman he was involved with whom he at least felt like he lived at the time is one Bunny Sue- whom, of course, was the only woman with whom was impotent around.

What vitiates the whole book, is that, unlike his father and his hero, Frank Gifford of the New York Giants, he was doomed "to sit in the stands with most men and acclaim others. It was my fate, my destiny, my end, to be a fan." In short, he saw himself in Gifford, to the point of actually thinking he was him. More specifically, Gifford was, to him, his alter ego - the far more successful one; the one that was living out his dreams, while he suffered, simmering in hatred and desperation with his banal and miserable life. Rather than inspire him to better himself, this depressed him to further his alcoholism, womanizing, as well as his overall dysfunctional way of life. As a slightly related side note, apparently his obsession with Frank Gifford qualified the memoir to be categorized in the sports genre. This is not something I agree with at all.

Somewhere in the last few pages, actually expresses how, he was not destined to be a teacher, as he "lacked the intelligence to simplify". I have been thinking the same exact thing during the entire novel. Mostly, I actually preferred this, as I appreciated his extensive vocabulary inability to describe things that necessitated verbosity. Unfortunately, for a fair amount, I could definitely see the pleonasm.

If I had read "A Fan's Notes" without the accompanying "Exley", I would have liked it a lot less. The depressing tone would be nothing but depressing. I would have finished it with nothing but the impression that Exley wanted to author a testament to his dire and woebegone life.

Now, calling this "The best novel written since 'The Great Gatsby'" (Newsday) is simply absurd- as is apparent in his lack of success with any other books he penned.

"Exley", first and foremost a much more humorous, lighter, and fun read, tells the story of a young boy trying to save his dying father, whom his mother insists is, in effect, non existent. Told in part by his therapist, whom he calls Doctor Pah-nee (a play on "penis" as originally written by Frederick Exley), a central theme is how far we will go to be in denial and believe the unbelievable. For example, Doctor Pah-nee actually dresses up as Exley, reads "A Fan's Notes" in order to be "in character", so that his patient can have what they both acknowledge he needs- to bring Exley to his father laying in the hospital. Miller Le Ray is the routine of denial, using his defense mechanisms to the maximum, continuing to search for the elusive Exley even when he is faced with hard evidence that he has died. Jonathan Yardley, the real life author of a non-fiction biography for Frederick Exley, is called to his home, for a visit during which Miller insists that Exley is still alive and breathing- in fact right there (in the form of Doctor Pah-nee). They have even gone as far as to mine Exley's grave!

Anyhow, the heart-warming narrative end on a redeeming note, one in which lasts in stark contrast to that in "A Fan's Notes".

Brock Clarke's interpretation far superior to the source, I fully liked the paired reading of these two novels!

[Romain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Voici un livre qui m’a beaucoup touché et qui a résonné très fort. Il s’agit d’une autobiographie romancée – aussi appelée parfois autofiction – de Frederick Exley. Le protagoniste – ou l’auteur – qui nous raconte une partie de sa vie ne s’est jamais adapté à la société. Il a été ce que l’on appelle parfois un marginal. Il semble l’avoir été malgré lui, pas par sa posture donc, mais plutôt par une incapacité totale à entrer dans le moule étriqué de la société. Quand je dis que ce n’est pas une posture, on peut même dire que c’est même l’opposé puisqu’il a énormément souffert et est entré dans une spirale d’autodestruction qui l’a mené à plusieurs reprises jusqu’à l’hôpital psychiatrique, et dans laquelle une seule chose a surnagé, peut-être comme un vestige de l’enfance idéalisé, les New York Giants.

Nous avions déçu nos familles par notre incapacité à fonctionner correctement en société (une définition de la folie qui en valait bien une autre). Les nôtres, les yeux remplis de larmes et d’auto-apitoiement, avaient prié les médecins de nous redonner l’envie de redémarrer dans la bonne direction. Cette direction – une famille et une femme, un poste de vice-président et une Cadillac – variait selon la vision étroite qu’en avaient nos proches.

Est-il simplement un paumé parmi tant d’autres ? Non il s’agit plutôt de quelqu’un de trop intelligent pour se conformer sans broncher à la rigidité et à la bêtise de la société, encore une fois sans le revendiquer, mais plutôt en le subissant de plein fouet. Cette intelligence fine et cette lucidité – ou cette extra-lucidité – dans sa perception du monde a été paradoxalement la cause de son malheur.

Je voulais tuer ce type, de la même façon que je voulais détruire cette Amérique obsédée par sa propre beauté, les anéantir pour leur manque total et infini d’imagination.

Ces qualités explosent dans ce roman et les multiples facettes qu’il explore. Dans la façon de raconter, dans le point de vue, dans la sincérité, dans l’écriture et dans l’humour. J’ai été particulièrement sensible à ce dernier point – je suis convaincu qu’il n’y a guère d’intelligence sans humour – qui évite brillamment au roman, notamment par le biais de personnages hauts en couleurs, d’être triste et déprimant – même s’il peut l’être parfois malgré tout.

Il utilisait le mot putain avec une fréquence dont je n’avais jamais été témoin en ce monde pourtant entièrement dévolu à la vulgarité la plus crasse.

Il s’agit de l’un des tout meilleurs romans que j’ai lu – et quel titre sublime –, parfois triste ou déprimant, parfois drôle et jouissif, la définition de la vie.

P.-S.: J'ai oublié de dire qu'il s'agit du premier livre d'une trilogie appelée Journal d'un Fan (A Fan's Notes) qui se poursuit donc avec À l'épreuve de la faim et À la merci du désir.

Également publié sur mon blog.

[Kirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exley is an interesting cult figure whose debut book, this one, is his real legacy. (The other two, PAGES FROM A COLD ISLAND and LAST NOTES FROM HOME are very flawed). A FAN'S NOTES is a very readable coming-of-age novel about hero worship. The difficulty most contemporary readers have is the object of his hero's worship: Frank Gifford. That's right---THE Frank Gifford, Mrs. Kathy Lee. For those of us too young to remember that FG was a gridiron hero---he retired the year I was born---that's a hard leap to make, but it's a necessary one. Among coming-of-age novels, its closest analogue is probably Plath's THE BELL JAR; both books are part of a 60s-era tradition that depicts electroshock therapy as a metaphor for the social pressure to conform to normality. A FAN'S NOTES is also interesting for its subtitle, "A Fictional Memoir," which was a relatively new technique in 68. How much a reader enjoys the book probably has as much to do with how familiar one is with the conventions of the coming-of-age novel; if you know THE CATCHER IN THE RYE and THE BELL JAR, it's hard to connect with this one emotionally. That said, there are many, many ardent admirers of the book, including Jonathan Yardley, who wrote an admirable biography of Exley, MISFIT, that should be read alongside this one.

[Alex Kudera · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm past the Mr. Blue section, on about page 300. At least one critic has considered that the Mr. Blue section doesn't fit within the novel, that it could be deleted, but I think it belongs because it contrasts Exley's largely passive life with Mr. Blue's active one as an outside salesman and a guy who will do push-ups if you shout, "Mr. Blue, give me fifty." The life of the salesman is also an archetypal American life, work to provide for family, etc., and Exley means to show us how this life is opposed his own.

UPDATE: A few days ago, I finished, maybe my fourth time through cover to cover, and it was only occasionally that I felt obliged to continue even as I knew that I must be neglecting so many other good books that I'll probably never have a chance to read. . .

[Lostinanovel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Put me amongst the legions of the Fred Exley cult. While this may have been his only great work, A Fan’s Notes is great, albeit horribly pitiful. The book as many paradoxes: funny but sad, intelligent but silly, frustrating but satisfying and compassionate but mean. Also, the book is very carefully constructed although Exley tries hard to give the appearance of being cavalier-like a teen boy who spends hours mussing up his hair. The book is reportedly autobiographical but Exley plays with the medium, once telling the reader that a story he has related is false, but more interesting than the sad truth of the incident. He deals with alcoholism, mental stability, and the fears of being unable to meet lofty expectations. Ultimately, the story is a horrible, but beautiful, tragedy with the publication of the book itself, only a partial vindication.

[Peter Landau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course I wanted to read A FAN’S NOTES for years. Look at all the great blurbs, the Vintage Contemporary cover, the booze. But when I finally cracked the brittle spin last week, I felt I might have made a mistake. The self-absorbed male voice has lost a lot of its charm, and the prospect of digging through hundreds of pages of its dense prose for those golden nuggets felt like bleak work. But what else am I going to do? Exley won me over. His factious memoir is of its time, but ahead and behind it, too. The facts are swept up in an idle mind’s fancy bordering the surreal but landing on the funny bone again and again. Each time I picked up the book it was with regret, only to put it down with a smile on my face. What loser can’t relate? I’m not sure I’ve got the muscle to lift the other two poorly reviewed volumes in his trilogy, but I might have to. I miss that damned voice.

[Andrew]

How, how had I not read this before?

You could compare it to Bukowski or Henry Miller, but Exley is infinitely more probing, more self-critical, more willing to hold his self to much harsher lights in this roman a clef about a second-rate, also-ran professional language guy whose sole source of solace is the Giants football team (never mind that I am also a second-rate professional language guy, and also am currently thinking in some part of my mind SEAHAWKS WOO!!!). You get every ugly detail, every pretense, every fucking-over of his fellow man, every hideous failure, and that, my friends, that is what elevates this to the same level of raw analysis that I reserve for David Foster Wallace and Richard Yates. Read A Fan's Notes. Now. Frank Gifford's orders.

[Joe Cleaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

exley the narrator (though narrated in the first person by a "character" named fred exley, we learn in the foreward that this isn't entirely autobiographical) tells us early on that even in america, failure is a part of life. here, the narrator's life is nothing but a series of failures, but his trenchant accounting of them is nothing but a triumph. though despicable on multiple fronts, exley is redeemed by the extent to which he is despised by the cretinous (a word he loves) people who surround him. exley is a wildly successful practitioner of a sort of alternative alchemy - in this detailing of a wretched life, he turns not bronze, but shit into gold.

[Samuel Moss · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got into books because I cannot stand watching sports or listening to people talk about sports. This book pulls everything I cannot stand about contemporary US culture INTO a book.

If you can get past the casual, rampant misogyny, homophobia and racism you get an unfunny book about a drunk watching football and lying on a couch, written in an endless, cloying 'high' register.