James Purdy

Stephen D. Adams

James Purdy has never fully enjoyed the support or approval of the American critical establishment. When his work began to appear in the early fifties, its highly-wroughtn style and proliferation of bizzare characters were at odds with the prevailing conventions of social realism. The rapid growth if his reputation in the face of such disapproval has since been accounted for in terms of a vogue for 'black humor' or 'American gothic'.