Lee

Lee

by Tito Perdue

After an absence of several decades, the aging and curmudgeonly Leland Pefley returns to his hometown to find that nothing is as he remembers it, and everything has gone to the dogs. Armed with nothing but a cane to ward away vice and to impose decorum and justice on the insolent decadence of his times, the erudite Lee sets out on a desperate quest to find a shred of intelligence in his contemporaries, prepared to beat it out of them if necessary. Propelled thence on a series of unlikely adventures, he finds himself at the heart of a story pitting nostalgia against modernity and the old against the new, in a scathing commentary on the decline of our society, and a hilarious and anguishing tale of an old man walking arm-in-arm with death.The first edition of Lee was published in 1991 by Four Walls Eight Windows, and received excellent reviews in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Reader and The New England Review of Books. The second edition was published in 2007 by Penguin. This is the third edition.

Genres: Fiction, Literature

160 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1991

About the author

Tito Perdue was born in 1938 in Chile, South America where his father, an Alabama native, was employed as an electrical engineer with the Braden Copper Company. Returning to the United States in 1941, his family settled in Anniston, Alabama, remaining there until his father's employer relocated to St. Louis in 1955. In 1956 Tito graduated from Indian Springs School, a private academy located south of Birmingham, and was admitted to Antioch College in Ohio, an institution from which he was expelled in 1957 for having cohabited off-campus with the former Judy Clark, also an Antioch student. They were married later that year, both at age 18, and are together still. This year at college is the subject of The Sweet-Scented Manuscript, published in 2004 by Baskerville Publishers.

Tito attended the University of Texas in 1957-59 and 1960-61, receiving the B.A. at the end of that period. His daughter Melanie was born in January 1959, in Austin, Texas. During 1959-60, he worked as an assistant bookkeeper in the financial district of New York City. He returned to New York after graduation from the University of Texas and was employed for one year as an insurance underwriter, an experience lovingly described in his novel The New Austerities published in 1994 to very good reviews.

Tito was employed by the University of Iowa Libraries in 1968-70, and then began work as The Social Sciences Bibliographer at Iowa State University, a position held for ten years ending in 1980. He then became Assistant Director of the State University of New York at Binghamton Library and left in 1982 to become Associate Director of Emory University Library. He was discharged from that position in early 1983 as a result of policy disagreements and opted to devote himself full-time thereafter to novel writing.

In 1991 Tito's first published novel Lee was issued by Four Walls Eight Windows, a small press in New York City. The book received favorable reviews in The New York Times and elsewhere, being declared "spellbinding" by The New England Review of Books and "a stunning debut" by The Los Angeles Reader. Among negative reviews, Publishers Weekly exposed the book as the work of a reactionary snob and revealed that "it sinks under the weight of its own pretensions."

In 1994 his somewhat experimental Opportunities in Alabama Agriculture was published, a story based upon the history of his forebears on his mother's side. Extremely favorable and extended reviews were provided by Thomas Fleming, editor of Chronicles; a Magazine of American Culture, and by columnist Jim Knipfel of The New York Press. In 2007 a paperback edition of Lee was issued by Overlook Press. Tito's most recent novel, Fields of Asphodel also appeared in 2007 from the same publisher.

Tito determined to become a writer as a result of having read the novels of Thomas Wolfe when he was an adolescent. Since that time he has been writing, or preparing to write (or resuscitating), for a period of about fifty years.

Depending upon the weather and the day of the week, Tito admires Orwell, Faulkner, Dostoevsky, Hardy and the nearly-forgotten Ladislas Reymont. Among current American authors, he prefers Larry Brown, William Gay, and Cormac McCarthy. Tito's taste in music runs to Wagner and Mahler.

Reviews

[Marji · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hilarious satire on contemporary America. Lee, the hero in the novel, is so cantankerous and rages against the stupid and banal people he encounters. His rants made me laugh out loud even when he is punishing his victims with his preferred murder weapon, his very heavy, walking cane. Perdue's writing is well crafted, an educated prose that reads like poetry.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an odd book, beautifully poetic, sparse on plot, an anti-modernism polemic in the third person.

[Javier · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.2/5⭐️
Lee was dark, comedic, and sad all wrapped into a short message of 145 pages.
The main character Lee has lived a long 73 years of life and his life brought him one heavy view: that modernity is terrible and things should be as they were in the 1950’s and possibly the future will be the decline of all modernism: television, rude attitudes, lack of education and love between people.
It was written with a sense of mystery like this Lee actually murder people or did he just hurt them; were his actions completely true or exaggeratedly written?
I don’t know but I do know that Lee is a Scrooge; holding a strong solid viewpoint because of their life choices. It seems his wife may be the only person who kept him open minded but she fell away too as a result of modern times.

[Fee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the way the protagonist observes people and things, but I found it hard to finish this book. The language is excellent and the rants are funny. I kept on thinking about Grumpy Cat while reading. I think I did not really enjoy the storyline because I am too used to reading books that give me some adrenaline rush. However, this is a good piece of literature to reflect on and I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking for something unique to read.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of an sour southern septuagenarian who returns to his hometown, complains about the modern world, and attacks people with his cane. Sadly I think this is my furture.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine entry in the Southern misanthrope tradition. Overlooked, in my view.