James McCourt (writer)

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James McCourt
"The central photo was taken by Laura Rubin a long time ago, and the ones on the far right were taken even longer ago: Jimmy McCourt in Central Park the summer before we met at Yale in '64 and me getting on a boat in Amsterdam in '65." Vincent Virga
"The central photo was taken by Laura Rubin a long time ago, and the ones on the far right were taken even longer ago: Jimmy McCourt in Central Park the summer before we met at Yale in '64 and me getting on a boat in Amsterdam in '65." Vincent Virga
Born (1941-07-04) July 4, 1941 (age 82)
Occupation
  • Writer
  • novelist
NationalityAmerican
EducationYale School of Drama
PartnerVincent Virga

James McCourt (born July 4, 1941) is a gay[1] American-born writer and novelist who was raised in Jackson Heights, Queens.[2] McCourt has been with his life partner, novelist Vincent Virga,[3] since 1964 [4] after they met at Yale University as graduate students in the Yale School of Drama.[4] McCourt's and Virga's papers are held[5] at Yale's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Work[edit]

McCourt is best known for his extravagant novel Mawrdew Czgowchwz (1975), about a fictional opera diva, and his 2003 nonfiction book Queer Street, about gay life in New York City after World War II. His novel, Now Voyagers (2007), is the first in a series of projected sequels to Mawrdew Czgowchwz.

Acclaim[edit]

McCourt has garnered praise from critics Susan Sontag and Harold Bloom and has been championed by author Dennis Cooper. Sontag directed McCourt's first novel, Mawrdew Czgowchwz, to her publisher's attention,[3] while Bloom named a later work, Time Remaining to his influential Western Canon.[6][7] Mawrdew Czgowchwz was brought back in print in 2002 with a new introduction by Wayne Koestenbaum.

Bibliography[edit]

Fiction

  • Mawrdew Czgowchwz (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1975)
  • Kaye Wayfaring in "Avenged" (stories) (Viking, 1985)
  • Time Remaining (stories) (Knopf, 1993)
  • Delancey's Way (Knopf, 2000)
  • Wayfaring at Waverly in Silverlake (stories) (Knopf, 2002)
  • Now Voyagers (Turtle Point Press, 2008)

Nonfiction

  • Queer Street: Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985 (W. W. Norton, 2003)
  • Lasting City: The Anatomy of Nostalgia (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2013)

Shorter writings

  • “Come Back, Harry Fannin!” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (Summer 1990): 184-86.
  • “Introduction.” Severo Sarduy, “Cobra” and “Maitreya.” Normal: Dalkey Archive Press, 1995, pp. xi-xviii.
  • “Not Some Brainless Beauty” [book review of Faye Dunaway’s Looking for Gatsby]. New York Times Book Review, 10 December 1995, p. 39.
  • “Prima Donna” [book review of Kim Chernin’s Cecilia Bartoli]. New York Times Book Review, 16 March 1997, p. 16.
  • "Gass's Hamlet." In Into "The Tunnel": Readings of Gass's Novel. Edited by Steven G. Kellman and Irving Malin. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1998, 21-29.
  • “The Actors Who Reflect the Stars.” New York Times, 23 March 2003, sec. 4, p. 13. [On best-supporting actor award]
  • "Riding Shotgun with the Almighty." Los Angeles Times Book Review, 2 October 2005. [book review of Dennis Cooper's God Jr.} [1]
  • "The Canticle of Skoozle." Triple Canopy no. 14 (13 September 2011).
  • [On semicolons]. Apology no. 1 (Winter 2013): 133-35.
  • “Vissi d’Arte (The Memoirs of Morgana Neri, As Confided to ‘Oroviso’).” Pleasure: A Journal of the Arts, September 2015, pp. 37-58.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Queer Street, p. 5
  2. ^ Southgate, Patsy. "James McCourt: On Divas and Drag Queens". The East Hampton Star. Archived from the original on December 23, 2018. Retrieved November 22, 2015.
  3. ^ a b Foley, Dylan. The Advocate, March 5, 2002 Opera soap: author James McCourt enjoys the encore publication of the zany opera novel he wrote two decades ago
  4. ^ a b Virga, Vincent. "Home - Vincent Virga". Vincentvirga.com. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
  5. ^ Danijela True; Jennifer Meehan. "Guide to the James McCourt and Vincent Virga Papers". Drs.library.yale.edu. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
  6. ^ Bloom, Harold. The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. Appendixes. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994
  7. ^ Robert, Teeter. "Bloom. Western Canon". Interleaves.org. Retrieved 11 November 2017.

Further reading[edit]

  • Hoffman, William Moses. "The Interior Landscape of James McCourt." Los Angeles Times Magazine, 31 October 1993, PP. 30–34.
  • Moore, Steven. "James McCourt." My Back Pages: Reviews and Essays (LA: Zerogram Press), 2017, pp. 239–42.
  • ------. * L.A. Times review of Now Voyagers
  • Rollow, David. "'That was Czgowchwz, her story, history': The Fictions of James McCourt." Hollins Critic 45.2 (April 2008): 2-27.

External links[edit]

Critical

Interviews


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