The Letters of Malcolm Lowry and Gerald Noxon, 1940-1952 - Hardcover

9780774802871: The Letters of Malcolm Lowry and Gerald Noxon, 1940-1952

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0774802871 ISBN 13: 9780774802871

Publisher: UBC Press, 1988

The eighty letters, cards and other messages in this correspondence -- produced mainly by Lowry and Gerald Noxon but also by Margerie (Bonner) Lowry -- offer a fresh introduction to Lowry, a certain 'Canadian' Lowry. At the same time they give insight into two writing careers (Bonner and Noxon) closely intertwined with his and vigorously championed by him in the 1940s. The letters observe the mind of Lowry at play on questions of literary technique, on films, and on the beauties and rigors of life in his Dollarton shack on an inlet near Vancouver. They reveal a warm, supportive, enormously sensitive and intelligent man, modifying somewhat the image of him now available.

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About the Author:

Paul Tiessen is Professor of English, Wilfrid Laurier University and editor of The Malcolm Lowry Review. Nancy Strobel is a graduate student at the University of Western Ontario.

Review:

The letters as a whole contain the relaxed observations and spontaneous flashes of wit and honesty only letters can show.... Noxon was the best of all possible friends to a man like Lowry: able to be detached without indifference, supportive without collusion, loyal without enmeshment. This volume of letters is as much a tribute to Noxon's wisdom as it is to Lowry's vulnerability. (Sharon Thesen The Whig-Standard)

This correspondence is well worth reading by everyone who is interested in Lowry. The letters to Gerald Noxon lead into Lowry's private existence as only letters to a dear friend can. (Stefan Haag BC Studies)

The definitive account of a small but significant part of Lowry's life . . . Tiessen's canvas is small, but it is beautifully worked, and his exquisite summary of the past makes me look in anticipation for what is yet to come. (Chris Ackerley Canadian Literature)

The letters observe the mind of Lowry at play on questions of literary technique, on films, and on the beauties and rigors of life in his Dollarton shack on an inlet near Vancouver. They reveal a warm, supportive, enormously sensitive and intelligent man, modifying somewhat the image of him now available. With their dramatization of Noxon's role in Lowry's writing career, they illuminate for the first time something of Lowry's method of actually solving the problems he encountered in re-writing Under the Volcano.

Noxon, CBC radio dramatist, novelist, and poet, emerges as a talented and perceptive writer who was able to encourage Lowry both morally and practically. Noxon's deftness in expertly combining the unofficial roles of devoted and spirited family member and literary editor gives the letters -- often brimming with high spirits and fond affection -- a relaxed and buoyant tone missing from much other Lowry correspondence.

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