![]() Snyder’s procedure as a biographer is to herd miscellaneous facts, more or less in sequence, into paragraphs without much sign of an underlying argument. Purdy remarked that if Robert or his wife, Dorothy, ever read a book of his they would have had ‘a horror stroke’. ![]() ![]() He too was a published author, though his book was called The Successful High School Athletic Programme. James described him as a ‘Babbitt’ – a smug materialist. The youngest brother, Robert, stayed in Ohio. Snyder refers to him as ‘an aspiring actor and gay youth’ who felt stuck in a conservative Midwestern town, but there is no follow-up on this broad hint. Richard, his older brother, had a successful stint as an actor before alcoholism ended his career and forced him to return home. After William lost large sums of money, Purdy’s parents divorced, and his mother, Vera, began running a boarding house. His father, William, was a banker unwisely turned property developer. Purdy was born in Ohio in 1914, the second of three sons. Carl van Vechten was converted even before Sitwell and remained a champion. For years his agent had been submitting stories for publication, with occasional success, and the two books Purdy posted to Italy (one of which was financed by his lover at the time, the other by a wealthy friend) had been sent out to many literary celebrities. Snyder starts his book with Sitwell’s epiphany but acknowledges the exaggeration behind Purdy’s claim that she had saved him from giving up writing altogether. ‘Motherfucker’ was taboo, but also unfamiliar in a British context. Gollancz replaced it with the metrically equivalent ‘little bugger’, not as cowardly a substitution as the author of this biography, Michael Snyder, seems to think. Sitwell herself was apparently not inhibited from intoning it in a restaurant, as if it was no more troubling than ‘knickerbocker’. Moments of poetic magic rather than developments in plot or character make the experience of reading compulsive: ‘“Who is this?” she said, putting her hand on his face as one might touch what is perhaps a door in a dark house.’ The last word of 63: Dream Palace was ‘motherfucker’. Themes that recur in Purdy’s later work include power struggles (liable to sudden inversions), extreme emotional states (also subject to reversal), and polar contrasts of riches and poverty, youth and age. The novella’s first sentence reads: ‘“Do you ever think about Fenton Riddleway?” Parkhearst Cratty asked the greatwoman one afternoon when they were sitting in the summer garden of her “mansion”.’ I don’t know that any opening sentence can be considered in isolation a masterpiece, but this one certainly serves notice of a stylised view of the world. Her excitement persuaded Gollancz to publish a volume containing the novella (and borrowing its title) along with nine stories. Purdy then sent her a copy of his novella 63: Dream Palace, also privately printed, about which she was even more enthusiastic, acclaiming its first sentence as ‘in itself, a masterpiece’. In one version of the event, Don’t Call Me by My Right Name, the book Purdy sent from America to Italy, made the last stage of its journey supernaturally, materialising by Sitwell’s bedside when she woke from a nap. He had been making no headway until in 1956 Edith Sitwell read a privately printed book of his stories and, ravished, threw herself into finding him a publisher and an audience. It has been a pleasure to serve you, and we wish you all the best in your future dance endeavors.’s literary career comes with its own creation myth. Once again, we would like to thank our customers for their patronage over the years. We will continue to serve our customers until our closing date, and we encourage you to visit us in the coming weeks to take advantage of our remaining inventory. We understand that this news may come as a disappointment to some of you, but we assure you that we will do everything we can to make the transition as smooth as possible. It has been an honor to serve the dance community in Haddington and beyond, and we are grateful for the memories and friendships that have been made along the way. We would like to take this opportunity to express our deepest gratitude to all of our customers for their years of loyal support. Our owner, Jo Sayer, has decided to retire after many years of dedication to providing quality dancewear to the community. It is with a heavy heart that we must announce the closure of Footlights Dancewear in Haddington.
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