The BURIED Book Club discussion

William Melvin Kelley is BURIED. He does though have one wildly popular novel which you can probably afford ; A Different Drummer. It has FIVE reviews ; (view spoiler)[the 107 ratings would technically disqualify Kelley from The Club, but just see=below (hide spoiler)].

The real gem here is Dunfords Travels Everywheres whose bones have mostly turned to dust. Yet, perhaps may these bones yet live!! The novel, what I know of it in my second=hand kind of way, contains honest Wakean Dream Language. So that's enough to get ecstatic and pay collectors' prices. [right now, there's one copy available under US$144 betwixt abe and ama ; mine's in the mails as we speak]

Here's his biblio per wiki ::
--A Different Drummer, Doubleday (1962), reprinted by Anchor Books (1990) 107 Ratings · 5 Reviews
--Dancers on the Shore, Doubleday (1964), reprinted by Howard University Press (1982) · 9 Ratings · 0 Reviews
--A Drop of Patience, Doubleday (1965), reprinted by Ecco Press (1996) 12 Ratings · 0 Reviews
--dem, Doubleday (1967), reprinted by Coffee House Press (2001) 34 Ratings · 3 Reviews
--Dunford's Travels Everywheres, Doubleday (1970) KNOT=REPRINTED 6 Ratings · 0 Reviews
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...

A short bit based on an interview, from 2012 ::
“My name just kind of faded away,” he said in a recent telephone interview from his home. “There are still people today who say to me, ‘Oh, I thought you were dead.’”
https://mosaicmagazine.org/2012/10/30...

I first ran across his name in American Fictions 1940-1980: A Comprehensive History and Critical Evaluation, in which Different Drummer is treated in his chapter on the Political Novel. [everyone interested in the stuff indicated in its title ought to have a copy of Karl's book] Then, just recently in Paradoxical Resolutions: American Fiction since James Joyce, Dunfords Travels Everywheres is treated along with Barthelme, Federman, Burroughs in a chapter on Everybody's Joyce. Ie, wake of The Wake kind of thing. The excerpts printed there convinced me that it's worth taking a look at what Kelley does with The Wake's dream language.

I did get my Review of Dunfords posted. gr's first so it'll be easy enough to locate. A very good enough novel with some very intriguing Wakese. Not totally mind/brain blowing ; but certainly not deserving of TOTal Neglect.