Chronicling a literary life that ended not so long ago,
this enlightening book begins with a detailed biographical
sketch of Barthelme's life and spans his growth into one
of the most original and imaginative American writers of
the twentieth century.
Donald Barthleme was born in Philadelphia but raised in
Houston. Educated at the University of Houston, he became
a fine arts critic for the Houston Post, later becoming
editor of Forum literary magazine. He was also director
of the Contemporary Arts Museum while writing and publishing
his first stories.
In the 1960s he moved to New York, where he became editor of
Location and was able to practice the art of short fiction
in such vehicles as the New Yorker and Harper's Bazaar. In
a witty, playful, ironic, and bizarrely imaginative style,
he wrote more than one hundred short stories and several
novels over the years.
In this literary memoir, Donald Barthelme's former wife,
Helen Moore Barthelme, offers insights into his career as
well as his private life, focusing especially on the decade
they were married, from the mid-fifties to the mid-sixties -
a period during which he developed the forms and genres that
made him famous. In open, straightforward language she tells
about their love for each other and about the events that
finally divided them.
Scholars of avant-garde American literature will gain
insider perspective on one man's life and the years which,
for all their myriad joys and downturns, produced some of
the best-remembered works in the literary canon.
_________________________________________________________
HELEN MOORE BARTHELME, who passed away in 2002, was
senior lecturer of English at Texas A&M University, College
Station. A former professor at the University of Houston and
Dominican College in Houston, she held a Ph.D. from the
University of Texas at Austin.
Number Thirteen: Tarleton State University
Southwestern Studies in the Humanities
