(np) stanley shapiro?

[Mark Kohut]

The writer is Daniel Fuchs...check him out.



----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2009 6:20:54 AM
Subject: (np) stanley shapiro?

Hi,

recent words on Updike prompted me to look at some of his work ("some
of you I know, some of you I'm meeting for the first time" - Dr Evil)
- haven't yet reread Memories of the Ford Admin, but I did read _Bech,
a Book_ for the first time.

anyway, it's in the charming form of a sort of semi-academic study of
Bech (not that differently from MotFA, come to think of it, at least
in that respect) but there's a reference,early on, sort of sidelong...
something like "...only graduate students will be interested in this,
but Bech really liked the work of the novelist who, after writing 3
perfect novels about Brooklyn, moved to Hollywood and began writing
movies for Doris Day"

...so I poked around and found that Stanley Shapiro lived in about the
right time zone, had Doris Day credits, and published a couple novels
in the 70s which I'm in the process of acquiring.  But no word about
his early output.  Just wondering if anybody was similarly intrigued
and knows about the "perfect Brooklyn novels"

PS I think Updike was quite great (though I guess he came out for
Vietnam-war, which doesn't endear him to me), and certainly Mr McEwan
was in his rights to acclaim this; he also might have quite legitimate
reasons not to laud OBA - eg, not to mention him as a specifically
American writer or part of the American literary scene is rather
consonant with our guy's decision not to make that scene to any
discernible degree on the physical plane.  Further, if they are indeed
buds, as Mark suggested, who knows what kind of understanding they
have?  Finally, why drag TRP into an obit for Updike (though, why drag
PR into it is equally a good question)

-- 
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special herbs are used as cures.
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