eustance chisholm and the works

Eustace Chisholm and the Works by James Purdy (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1967)

I read this because I had really enjoyed Mourners Below (see below), and while I liked this book and enjoyed reading it, it didn’t excite me quite as much as MB.  Perhaps a little Purdy goes a long way, and I should have allowed more time to pass between books.  

This is the story of a group of friends, mostly homosexually inclined, in Chicago.  The figure at the center is Amos Ratcliffe, a beautiful and brilliant boy who loves, and is loved by, Daniel Haws, his sleep-walking landlord.  They are both friendly with Eustace “Ace” Chisholm, who is writing an epic poem on old newspapers and living with his wife, Carla, and various (male) lovers.  What little plot there is concerns the efforts of a man named Ruben Masterson to seduce Amos and lure him away from Daniel, and this goes tragically awry with fatal consequences for both Daniel and Rueben’s mother, a wealthy dowager who is also charmed by Amos.  We get some interesting and dramatic story about all these characters, which involves such unsavory topics as drugs, incest, abortion, and torture.  This book, like MB, also concludes with an act of horrific sexual violence — Daniel is eviscerated by an army captain who loves him with a fatal repression that is expressed through torture.  

Unpleasant as all this is, it is related in Purdy’s bright, odd, funny prose.  An uncomfortable book that doesn’t quite hang together, but definitely interesting and worth reading.  (I often thought of Edward Swift’s work while I read James Purdy — they take place in the same — or similar — psychological space.)