James Purdy gives true expression to the phrase ‘certified genius’, in the dual sense of being iconoclastic as well as possibly bug-fuck insane. Meeting Cabot Wright is one of the weirdest things I have ever read. It is one of those insidious reading experiences that seem to make little sense while you are in the active process of assimilating the text, but which then proceeds to seep into your consciousness.If you like genre fiction in any form – from SF to New Weird and plain old vanilla horror – then do yourself a favour and read Purdy. You will be amazed at what you will (re)discover about what you thought you knew about literature.It is incredible to think that this novel – with its very modern concerns about marginality and the writing process itself – was published in 1964. On one level, it is a quite lurid attack on the American Dream, as represented by New York City:You are living in the wickedest city which ever existed, making storied Babylon child’s play, for at least the Babylonians felt and relished their sins. You sin not even knowing the stab of your wickedness, not even, oh flock, gaining pleasure from your transgressing as did that ancient city on the Euphrates. You sin not through appetite for it, but through sheer spiritual emptiness and bodily numbers.A prime sinner in this regard is the fabled figure of Cabot Wright himself, tried, convicted and fresh out of jail (though his ultimate rehabilitation is always in question), for a staggering 300+ rapes of women (the number 360 is bandied about at one stage).The novel’s rather preposterous plot sees Bernie dispatched by his doting wife to Brooklyn to track down the serial rapist and interview him for a novel, which she is convinced will be a bestseller due to its sensationalist nature. Her chief injunction to her husband is to turn “truth into fiction”.The publisher then dispatches the wife’s best friend, Zoe, to Brooklyn to ensure Bernie remains on track (and, if need be, take over the project). “We need you, dear Zoe, for the English language and for brains. Nobody else can give us those but you.”To complicate the literary allusions even further, Zoe’s own husband, Curt is (of course) a failed writer. This leads to a much extended riff, almost like a jazz refrain throughout the novel, about bad books becoming bestsellers and good books being ignored (sadly, a fate that befell Purdy himself in the end).Zoe gets to read Bernie’s attempt at a novel, which tells the weird and wonderful life story of Cabot Wright himself, “a most supposititious child”, who (of course) is not the monster we think him to be, but rather “the mythical clean-cut American youth out of Coca-Cola ads, church socials, picnics along the lakes.”So far so good. But this is where things really start to get weird, as Zoe gets to finally meet the fabled Cabot Wright himself. Only to learn he suffers from memory loss, and is awaiting the arrival of a true novelist to restore his life to himself (needless to say, both Zoe and Bernie fail the test).Bernie lets his imagination get the better of him when he writes that Cabot Wright, desperate to find a cure for sleeplessness, submits himself to the ministrations of a quack doctor, which has the unfortunate side-effect of unleashing his monstrous sexual appetite.Said doctor reappears later in a new guise as the head of an anti-deviancy movement that proposes, among other things, to attach micro radio transmitters to the rectums of all new-born babies “so that the least indication of their becoming deviate would be detected from birth on”.This is a mere glimpse of the kind of inspired insanity that the novel collapses into towards the end. One thinks it starts off weirdly, only to realise that this is actually Purdy’s own version of reality … what he himself considers weird is truly, truly strange.Purdy not only defies (and confuses the shit out of) convention, but makes this wildly improbable novel cohere in a demented kind of way that seems like an impossible feat of literary fleet-footedness. This is mainly due to the brilliance of Purdy’s writing and the immense fun he has with language.Over-the-top as the characters are, and as half-baked as the plot is, there is an earnestness and an anger here that is quite excoriating. I cannot even begin to think what the literary establishment must have thought of this when it was first published.And who is the mysterious James Purdy himself? Born in Hicksville, Ohio (of all places) in 1914, he passed away in 2009 at the grand old age of 95, in relative obscurity, I believe. Gone were the halcyon days of being feted by luminaries such as Susan Sontag and Gore Vidal.This adds a note of such sadness to Cabot Wright Begins, which the author did not realise at the time was such a fitting elegy for his own career as a purveyor of that ultimate feat, of turning truth into fiction.
This is the first book by James Purdy that I did not fully enjoy reading. Getting through this one was kind of an ordeal. I was asking when this mess was going to end. In terms of pace, it’s less of a crazy ride. The first part of the book especially seems like Purdy at half speed. Would it be wrong of me to say that for the first 6 chapters I was waiting for this novel to begin? When it finally does begin, it's in the form of a book within a book. In part, this section takes on the blurring of fact and fiction with fiction overtaking fact and both obliterating and creating identity.And what unhinged specimen has Purdy given us now? Why look, it's a gentle rapist. Even with such a preposterous rapist, practically defanged, it's still disturbing to read about his crimes. The borderline misogyny in Purdy’s writing doesn’t help. Take Purdy's usual level of misogyny raise it a notch or two, multiply it by the greater number of female characters (most of them Cabot Wright's victims), add to that a rapist as the main character, and you are going to end up with something pretty damn unpleasant. Descriptions of the rapes are suggestive rather than graphic, usually brief but still chilling. Sometimes it seemed like the book was made up of mind numbing conversations interspersed with rapes. I think I prefer it when Purdy tortures his characters not the reader. It's almost like his main message to the reader is “You saw the synopsis, and you still chose to pick up this book, choke on it, bitch.” The novel drags especially during Cabot Wright’s conversations with his elderly boss, Mr. Warburton. Cabot being informed about the death of his parents by his boss is the exception, and I think it shows what Purdy was aiming for with these conversations. But only this one hit the mark for me. It's a hoot while also being unsettling as Cabot is just hitting his stride as a rapist. There are also Mr. Warburton’s mostly racist and homophobic rants. By labeling his lengthy diatribes sermons, Purdy is at least up front that we are not in for fun reading.There is always a question of how to take Purdy’s writing since it's so over the top. At times it seems like Purdy's aim is to shock, and at other times I thought he couldn't help but be shocking. This book, more than any of his others, allows the reader to dismiss all the craziness as satire. Its weakness as a satire is that Purdy doesn't have a light touch at the best of times, and here rather than the sharpness of good satire, you have more of a bludgeoning effect.Though it’s tempting to dismiss the more disturbing aspects of the novel as satire, this is James Purdy, and Cabot Wright is only a step or two removed from a number of his other characters who don't have the excuse of clear cut satire for their behavior. I would say that Cabot Wright as a character and his behavior are not a function of satire; rather the satire is built around him. Cabot is very much a James Purdy character like others who are slaves to lust and more than likely to express their extreme desires with violence. He is the novel’s hero. And yes that's how he seems due to Purdy's approach and maybe even his intent. Though Purdy does tip his hat to the more conventional view that rapists are bad people, Cabot Wright is his man, and he is rooting for him. While everyone else is trod underfoot, the rapist is exalted. And I don’t see much significance in the abuse he suffers. That's par for the course for Purdy characters. Many of them get far worse with less reason.The satirical element comes alive near the end of the book on the subject of publishing. It references Cabot Wright Begins and Purdy's kind of writing in general. I am not a fan of writers striking at critics and airing petty personal or professional grievances within the pages of their books. My usual stance is "You're on the clock. Settle your grudges on your own time." At least we get a complete list of exactly who shit in James Purdy's cereal. Though in part it seems self-indulgent, it’s also surprisingly effective. It earns its place because here the book turns on itself creating an ouroboros effect. I kind of wish the book had ended there. This section, among other things, underscores the "lighten up, it's only satirical rape" message of the book. To want to read this book, you have to be pretty far out there or a James Purdy fan. The gay content in this book is very slight, only a tiny bit at the end almost like Purdy is throwing us a bone. Cabot Wright Begins is uneven and unlike other James Purdy books, it seems overlong. Though the book has value, I can’t imagine ever recommending it to anyone.
Do You like book Cabot Wright Begins: A Novel (2013)?
"Dial just anywhere at present, call up California or London or Nice and say, 'I hadn't a minute to pick up the inkwell. How are you?' Half-listen to this and that, and goodbye again. So miraculous and yet so unsatisfying, so spooky-unreal to hear people's live voices when you know you'll never see them alive again if you both live to be 200. It's already like talking to the River Styx.""Where's the keenest place you can hurt a man? Not in his eye or groin, but where he can't remember.""By George, the passage of time is one thing that can frighten a fellow into running right out of here, without his hat, down to the river, if he let it."Mrs. Bickle had arrived in New York during the big drought, the revival of the wig and white-lead lip makeup, fellatio as the favorite subject in best-selling fiction, the campaign by the Commissioner of Markets to put palm-readers, fortune-tellers, and purveyors of the occult out of business, and world sugar irregular.
—Evan
