Description
Literary Nonfiction. Anthony Hecht and William L. MacDonald met for the first time in the fall of 1954, shortly after each had arrived in Rome, Hecht on a Guggenheim Fellowship, and MacDonald on a Rome Fellowship at the American Academy. Hecht was 31 years old, and MacDonald 33; both were recently married, and both were on their way to making names for themselves, Hecht as one of his era's most esteemed poets, and MacDonald as one its most accomplished architectural historians. Though neither man could have realized it at the time, this was to be the start of a friendship that would endure for the best part of four decades, a friendship which would generate a large body of correspondence, the character of which is likely to come as a surprise to anyone who only knew the men by their works. All but a handful of the 440 letters and postcards that have come down to us are now gathered in A Bountiful Harvest, a volume edited and with an introduction by Anthony Hecht's UK publisher Philip Hoy. The correspondence combines richness of anecdote with variety of topic, lightness of touch with great learning, a passion for high culture with a love of the down-to-earth and downright off-colour, concern for each other with undisguised rivalrousness. Above all, the exchanges are almost unceasingly funny, except towards the end, when things take an unexpected and deeply saddening turn.
"This is a unique and exhilarating yield indeed, a decades-long epistolary exchange between two of late twentieth-century America's wittiest and most creative minds, inventing as they go a parlance (mostly English, with much exotic admixture) at once deeply learned and wickedly ribald, parodically arch and touchingly percipient. More often than not the points of departure are the visual arts, architecture, and literature, and other subjects include extravagant `lagniappes of culture,' while in counterpoint we have Philip Hoy's energetic, resourceful exactitude. His curiosity shines its light into every nook and cranny - crook and nanny, as one under the pertinent influence might say - and indeed there are moments at which the reader suspects the editor is participating in the game he broadcasts. His scrupulous notes about their stationery dovetail with the correspondents' ingenious allonyms, and his carefully chosen photos and other visual aids provide welcome context. Turn to this book at any point for spiritual stimulation-as inspiration for an essay on the classical, the romantic, or the baroque, as an antidote to academic ennui, as a livre de chevet-and be gratified and thankful." —Stephen Yenser
"Robert Frost said he entertained ideas only to see if they entertained him. Hecht and MacDonald devote all their energies to entertaining each other. They sign off letters by the likes of Sir Cairo Portcullis, or Eddie Puss, or Timon of Akron, or Engle & Bert Humperdinck. They revel in shared feelings of contempt for a mutually disliked colleague, 'The great arch-fool and world's leading nitwit.' Hecht offers to provide 'filthy pictures' for MacDonald's book on Russian cities and does so under the name Jeremy Bentham. For these two close friends, every letter was a chance to perform in strikingly amusing ways. Now we can share in these entertaining performances." —William Pritchard
"Reading the correspondence of poet Anthony Hecht and architectural historian William L. MacDonald is like listening in on an extended, intimate, learned, and always entertaining conversation between two extraordinary men — witty raconteurs, brilliant intellectuals and incisive wordsmiths — as they explore their interior lives, comment on friends and events, and return, again and again, to the tribulations and joys of their creative work." —John Pinto
"These letters between two old friends, each a master of his craft, are a delight. They are full of wit and high spirits, and shot through with Rabelaisian humor. Along the way, we learn a good deal about architecture and enjoy a feast of literary gossip, as well as recondite bits of lore. Such gifts for a reader are rare." —Eleanor Cook
"It isn't often in the history of literary correspondence that we get to hear from both sides. Rarer still do we find a pair of writers with such exhilarating flair for the epistolary sport as Hecht and MacDonald. Even rarer do letters find so judicious and resourceful an editor as Philip Hoy. I am reminded of a great Wimbledon final. The players have all the shots, and the umpire never misses a call. Anyone seriously interested in writing will immensely enjoy and benefit from this collection." —Jonathan Post
Author Bio
Philip Hoy was born in London in 1952, and educated at the Universities of York and Leeds. He has a Ph.D in Philosophy, a subject he taught most recently for the University of Oxford's Department for Continuing Education. Prior to founding The Waywiser Press, he co-founded (with Peter Dale and Ian Hamilton) Between The Lines, now an imprint of Waywiser, which is devoted to publishing book- length interviews with contemporary poets. His most recent publication is "The Transatlantic Disconnect," which is a modified version of the paper he delivered at the AWP conference in Boston, Massachusetts in March 2013, where his fellow panellists were Adam Kirsch, Eric McHenry, Mary Jo Salter and Rosanna Warren (The Warwick Review, September 2013). Previous publications include W.D. Snodgrass in Conversation with Philip Hoy (Between The Lines, London, 1998), Anthony Hecht in Conversation with Philip Hoy (Between The Lines, London, 1999, 2001), and Donald Justice in Conversation with Philip Hoy (Between The Lines, London, 2001). A fine press edition of Anthony's Hecht's last poems, Interior Skies, for which Hoy has written the foreword, was recently published by Liv Rockefeller and Kenneth Shure's Two Ponds Press.
Author City: ENG