Peter Nelson-King wrote recently to pass along “a few interesting rarities”:
I was quite struck by Crown of Flowers and Sweet Bobby, the only two novels by the economist Joel Kurtzman. Written in the late 60’s and early 70’s, both are tragedies with surreal aspects. The first uses an arresting, diaristic technique to chronicle the voyage of a group of hippie outsiders to an uninhabited island off the California coast, with harsh results. The second is set in a state mental institution, and was based on the author’s own experiences working in that environment. Both novels have highly concentrated, poetic prose, and are terribly sad. They definitely deserve to be rediscovered, but their author seems to have made no effort to get them back into print.
Editor: Of Sweet Bobby, Kirkus Reviews wrote, “Despite simplistic Freudianisms, the author does succeed against nearly impossible odds in wresting some sympathy for his tortured bully protagonist, but so what? Everybody knows the world’s a dirty place, war and poverty ain’t fun, and the only thing sweet about Bobby is the title of this book.” In The New York Times, Martin Levin wrote more generously, “The measure of Joel Kurtzman’s achievement is not to show us how much of a monster his hero is, but how much of a human being. Beneath the crazy violence is a residue of humanity that comes to view in the course of the novel.”
In a similar vein and era is A Useless Day by Janine Bregeon. The short novel depicts a day in the life of a middle-aged wife and mother who, suffocating under depression and anxiety, refuses to get out of bed. Wrapped tight in her internal fears and rages, she flounders, lashes out at her family, and struggles with the meaning of it all, but she and the reader eventually come to a realization, and the novel ends on a higher, but still sober, note. It appears to be the only novel by Bregeon, a mysterious French artist, at least the only one translated into English, and it’s been out of print since about 1970.
Editor: I like this remark from the NY Times’ anonymous reviewer: “This is the fever chart of a midget nervous breakdown experienced by a young housewife in the south of France. (I know the jacket features a lubricious nude. Forget it. Grove would stick a nude Nokomis on a reprint of ‘Hiawatha.’)”
Can I get an Amen, my fellow Grove bookshoppers from the 1970s?
You might also enjoy the work of Elaine Kraf, a never-famous New York writer who published 4 novels between 1969 and 1979, none of which sold at all, before vanishing from the literary scene. All are portraits of women in states of psychological distress, and having read her first (I Am Clarence) and her last (The Princess of 72nd Street) I can safely say she’s a great unheralded talent. The latter is the only book to get reprinted, by the Dalkey Archive, though I don’t know if anybody noticed.
Editor: Kraf’s other two novels are The House of Madelaine (1971) and Find Him! (1979)
Thank you, Peter: all excellent suggestions!