Cabot Wright Begins A Novel

James Purdy has succeeded better than anyone else around at the moment in re-creating the U.S.A. and presenting it simultaneously as his own invention and as a faithful reflection of reality--not an easy feat. Cabot Wright Begins is a delight all the way through. --Paul Bowles "It might be loosely described as a bravura work of satire - a satire on pornographic fantasy, a satire on New York literary life, a satire on affluent eccentric mid-century America. Except that satire is perhaps too narrow a term to convey the kind of comedy that Purdy writes... Rather [it is] the vehicle for a universal comic vision." Susan Sontag, The New York Times Book Review