Back of the Book: 1969, et al.

So that first edition of Nog that I had to have arrived in the mail today (it's the hardcover version, with a quote from Richard Poirier of Partisan Review calling it "the most original, exciting and talented new novel since Thomas Pynchon's V," not the paperback, on which Pynchon himself declares that "the novel of bullshit is dead"), and I love Rudy's bio: Rudolph Wurlitzer has published short stories in the Atlantic Monthly and The Paris Review. He lives nowhere in particular. He is thirty-one years old and can be reached in care of his publisher.

It's not that different today, except with more fascinating and nearly unfathomable accomplishments. I wonder where he was living then? I sat in on an interview he did last week with a journalist here in New York, and I am wondering, did this come out before or after he got a job on an oil tanker (oh that's right; he was 17), or when he was in Paris, "chasing after the same girls" as Phillip Glass, or when he "drifted down to Mallorca to be secretary to the poet Robert Graves," of whom all he said was, "He taught me to write in short sentences." And then there was that time  that he was on his way to Mexico when Bob Dylan called him up... Or was it Cuba?

Also the more I work with him, the more I am truly amazed that he actually has a publicist.  He certainly doesn't do the dog and pony show. And best of all, as I am writing this post, David from Largehearted Boy left a totally related comment. At any rate, take a look at The Drop Edge of Yonder. I've heard it described as an "acid western," and that's a start.