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Synopsis
With compassion and honesty, George Woodcock presents Malcolm Lowry: the man and his works. The portrait that emerges depicts a series of complex and destructive relationships that lead to an existential exploration of alienation, exile, and identity and to what many critics regard as some of the finest writing to come out of the twentieth century.
This compelling collection of essays provides considerable insight into the challenges Lowry set for himself—as an artist and as a man. The first section of the book, “The Works,” considers all of Lowry’s fiction and the evolution of his style as he struggled to find the form appropriate to a new approach to reality. The influences that shaped his world and gave form to his work are considered in the second section, “The Man and the Sources.” From Lowry’s love of jazz and the cinema, to the books he read, Woodcock follows Lowry’s life: a life marked by violent alcoholism, two unstable marriages, and stints in jails and mental institutions as he drifted to and from London, Paris, New York, and Mexico. Contributors include: Robert B. Heilman, Anthony R. Kilgallin, George Woodcock, Geoffrey Durrant, David Benham, Matthew Corrigan, Conrad Aiken, Hilda Thomas, Downif Kirk, W.H. New, Perle Epstein, William McConnell, and Maurice J. Carey.
George Woodcock (1912–1995)—award-winning poet, author, and essayist and widely known as a literary journalist and historian—published more than ninety titles on history, biography, philosophy, poetry, and literary criticism.