Memoirs of a Bastard Angel - Hardcover

Harold Norse

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688067042 ISBN 13: 9780688067045

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 1989

Synopsis

The author recounts his experiences in the literary and homosexual cultures of Europe, Africa, and America from the 1940s to the present, discussing his associations with W.H. Auden, Tennessee Williams, and others

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Norse ( Beat Hotels ) immerses the reader in bohemian and gay subcultures in this freewheeling, name-dropping autobiography. In the early, slightly acrimonious chapters, W. H. Auden steals his lover, Chester Kallman, who became Auden's lifelong companion. Norse dispenses an abundance of stories: he read James Baldwin's first novel in an early draft; he shared a cabin with Tennessee Williams in Massachusetts; William Carlos Williams was a mentor of sorts; Jackson Pollock and Dylan Thomas were his drinking buddies. He spent time in Paris with William Burroughs; lived in Rome; practiced Buddhist meditation in Spain; made the Venice, Calif., "scene" in the late 1960s. Among the friends and acquaintances here are Anais Nin, Ezra Pound, Charles Bukowski, Paul Bowles and John Cage. Yet some of this memoir's most powerful scenes occur far from the glitter, as when Norse recounts his squalid Brooklyn childhood or describes how, while working in a WW II shipyard, he witnessed a black man beaten to death. Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Norse, author of Beat Hotel (1983) and over a dozen book of poetry, has written a gossipy, bawdy memoir recounting an adventurous life on three continents. Although he describes himself as an outsider, Norse was friendly with some of the most important writers of his time, and his book includes anecdotes on a host of literary lions, among them W.H. Auden, James Baldwin, William Carlos Williams, Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. The discrimination Norse encountered as a homosexual and a Jew is a central theme in this memoir celebrating tolerance and love over prejudice and hatred. While the book may not win Norse many new readers, it will be welcomed by those already familiar with his work.
- William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0688067042
• ISBN 13: 9780688067045
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 447