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63: Dream Palace
Librarian Don't combine this with ANY OTHER WORK by James Purdy. This original edition contains the novella 63: Dream Palace only.
69 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1956
29 people want to read
About the author
James Purdy
71 books140 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 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 6, 2024
I finished reading 63: Dream Palace (a novella by James Purdy) last night, and I have this feeling I need to exorcise this from my mind somehow. I feel so haunted by it that am unable to pick up anything else. As per an article in The New Yorker, after the great James Baldwin read 63: Dream Palace, he told Purdy, “I wish I’d written that.” Is there a bigger compliment?
This is the typical Purdy universe. Bleak, so bleak that sometimes it feels surreal but mostly, terrifyingly real. The characters are marginalized outsiders, so brimming with desperation that they have crossed the threshold of differentiating between what is moral and immoral. The absolute worst and the cruelest things in the world don't shock them, having experienced that cruelty themselves. This universe, seemingly present in the 'real world' borders horror. Another aspect is the utter emptiness in this universe, the lack of meaning which leads Purdy's characters to self-destruction, adding to this sense of burgeoning horror.
The way Purdy writes about these desperate misfits is shocking but also tender. In a few pages you can go from feelings of shock, menace and terror to that of pity, sadness and hopelessness. In the midst of all the cruelty, there are flashes of beauty, love and unexpected kindness. 63: Dream Palace lingers in my mind, almost uncomfortably - that is the power of Purdy's writing.
During his lifetime, Purdy, a queer author of 'controversial' writing, had a super niche fanbase largely consisting of other writers. Years after his passing, his fanbase still seems sadly limited. It is quite reductionist to compare Purdy to anyone else but read him if you love William Trevor (his darker stories/novels), Flannery O'Connor and yes, even Dostoevsky.
This is the typical Purdy universe. Bleak, so bleak that sometimes it feels surreal but mostly, terrifyingly real. The characters are marginalized outsiders, so brimming with desperation that they have crossed the threshold of differentiating between what is moral and immoral. The absolute worst and the cruelest things in the world don't shock them, having experienced that cruelty themselves. This universe, seemingly present in the 'real world' borders horror. Another aspect is the utter emptiness in this universe, the lack of meaning which leads Purdy's characters to self-destruction, adding to this sense of burgeoning horror.
The way Purdy writes about these desperate misfits is shocking but also tender. In a few pages you can go from feelings of shock, menace and terror to that of pity, sadness and hopelessness. In the midst of all the cruelty, there are flashes of beauty, love and unexpected kindness. 63: Dream Palace lingers in my mind, almost uncomfortably - that is the power of Purdy's writing.
During his lifetime, Purdy, a queer author of 'controversial' writing, had a super niche fanbase largely consisting of other writers. Years after his passing, his fanbase still seems sadly limited. It is quite reductionist to compare Purdy to anyone else but read him if you love William Trevor (his darker stories/novels), Flannery O'Connor and yes, even Dostoevsky.
December 20, 2024
This is the novella which, refused publication in the USA, was published in the UK to ecstatic reviews (which caused an American publisher to publish it and other stories) and thus launched James Purdy on his erratic career as the irrepressible bete noire of American literature. It is a wonderful work particularly, if like me, you are not simply a devotee or an aficionado but the equivalent of Opera or Ballet queen where Purdy's work is concerned.
There is so much I could say but I won't because '63: Dream Palace' is more of a long short story than a novella and it would be too easy to dilute its impact by pointlessly revealing 'plot' points. But the themes of so much of his later work is here, innocence betrayed, taken advantage of and refused the help and guidance it seeks (which is there in Purdy's first novel 'Malcolm' and at the heart of his much later 'Jeremy's Version'). The setting is also that of his later novels ('The House of the Solitary Maggot, etc.) that mid-West provincial small town (though it is set in an unnamed West Virginia city) and the raw sexuality is laid on, for its time, with trowel and it is queer, though not 'gay' but then Purdy never wrote a 'gay' novel or story though he wrote many queer ones. He wasn't part of any movement he just was and his stories queer characters are just there. They aren't explained or justified which I adore. They are modern in the way the women in Jane Austen are modern - they are free of their time and circumstances:
"...Purdy didn’t merely write one or two individually adventurous, original stories or novels but instead (he) created a comprehensively original body of work as a whole, each separate work providing a variation on Purdy's themes and methods but also exemplifying his larger achievement."
The above is from an article 'The Art of Disturbance: On the novels of James Purdy' by Daniel Green at: https://www.thereadingexperience.net/... which I strongly recommend. I also recommend viewing Fenton Riddleway of '63: Dream Palace' alongside Blackie Pride in 'The Dog Star' by Donald Windham. There is a great deal of overlap in both Fenton and Blackie's struggle to escape and find safety in home and family. The hopelessness of the circumstances of those without is delineated by Purdy with sympathy and truth. There is no sentimentality towards Fenton Riddleway in '63: Dream Palace' but that doesn't mean you won't weep for him.
An astounding work for America in 1956 - it is easy to understand why publishers didn't want to publish it, there was too much reality in it and there were no excuses or explanations.
This story has been republished in a number of collections of Purdy's stories including, most recently, 'The Complete Short Stories' (2013). Whatever collection you read it in is immaterial, all that matters is that you read it.
There is so much I could say but I won't because '63: Dream Palace' is more of a long short story than a novella and it would be too easy to dilute its impact by pointlessly revealing 'plot' points. But the themes of so much of his later work is here, innocence betrayed, taken advantage of and refused the help and guidance it seeks (which is there in Purdy's first novel 'Malcolm' and at the heart of his much later 'Jeremy's Version'). The setting is also that of his later novels ('The House of the Solitary Maggot, etc.) that mid-West provincial small town (though it is set in an unnamed West Virginia city) and the raw sexuality is laid on, for its time, with trowel and it is queer, though not 'gay' but then Purdy never wrote a 'gay' novel or story though he wrote many queer ones. He wasn't part of any movement he just was and his stories queer characters are just there. They aren't explained or justified which I adore. They are modern in the way the women in Jane Austen are modern - they are free of their time and circumstances:
"...Purdy didn’t merely write one or two individually adventurous, original stories or novels but instead (he) created a comprehensively original body of work as a whole, each separate work providing a variation on Purdy's themes and methods but also exemplifying his larger achievement."
The above is from an article 'The Art of Disturbance: On the novels of James Purdy' by Daniel Green at: https://www.thereadingexperience.net/... which I strongly recommend. I also recommend viewing Fenton Riddleway of '63: Dream Palace' alongside Blackie Pride in 'The Dog Star' by Donald Windham. There is a great deal of overlap in both Fenton and Blackie's struggle to escape and find safety in home and family. The hopelessness of the circumstances of those without is delineated by Purdy with sympathy and truth. There is no sentimentality towards Fenton Riddleway in '63: Dream Palace' but that doesn't mean you won't weep for him.
An astounding work for America in 1956 - it is easy to understand why publishers didn't want to publish it, there was too much reality in it and there were no excuses or explanations.
This story has been republished in a number of collections of Purdy's stories including, most recently, 'The Complete Short Stories' (2013). Whatever collection you read it in is immaterial, all that matters is that you read it.
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October 8, 2021An early Purdy in his characteristic gothic-mythic-tragic mode, painful and sinister and quite richly imagined at its darkest moments. Anticipates the later, even grimmer Eustace Chisholm and the Works in a number of ways.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews