Complete Fiction of W. M. Spackman

I first heard about this author from Rich Horton. Now that I think of it, I've only heard about this author from Rich, but the buildup that Rich gave him forced me to pick up the Dalkey Archive complete collection of his works. I'm not very familiar with the Dalkey Archive, but from what I can tell, they are a non-profit or collective determined to keep worthy literature in print in inexpensive editions, mostly trade paperback (the name of the press is from a novel by Flann O'Brien). Spackman is a Princeton man who graduated from college just before the Depression, wrote and published his first novel at the age of 45, then had to wait over twenty years before his second was accepted. That novel, An Armful of Warm Girl (what a wonderful title!), received enough critical acclaim that he published three more novels in the succeeding years.Heydey is that first novel, published in 1953, printed here in a revised form that the author had not completed before his death. The setting is New York City during the Depression and the characters are Harvard grads trying to live their dreams in a world that has all but collapsed. They take solace in alcohol and sex in an endless string of late night parties and rendezvous (is that the plural of rendezvous?). Imagine a Thorne Smith novel with no supernatural elements and a Harvard education.I loved it, finishing it in two reading sessions. The style is the sort of thing I try to achieve in my own fiction--a balance between exposition and dialogue that alternates between insight and wit. The structure is oblique, to be nice, but revealing once we achieve the finale. At times, you wonder what does it all mean, but then, that may be the point.There are some similarities between Spackman and Anthony Powell (another favorite of Rich's), including the focus on gossip and the "dance" of a group of people who step through life, changing partners or standing by the wall spilling punch. Powell, though, is so understated that his dance seems hidden, lost in the intricacies of its creation; Spackman, while not explicit, is like the best 1940s screwball comedy, teasing the censor with a playfulness that is *sans* malice.It seems fairly obvious to me that Heydey is autobiographical (again, like Anthony Powell's dance). As the advice goes, Spackman started writing by writing what he knew. I look forward to reading the rest of the novels in this collection to see if they contain the same strange combination of *joi de vivre* and world-weariness.

I was wandering through the Literature section of a local bookstore the other day, looking at the "usual suspects" (Amis, Davies, Borges, Powell, and so on), really just checking out their selection, not expecting to find anything new, when I thought: "I'll bet I can stump them. Let's see if they have any W. M. Spackman!". Spackman is one of my secret pleasures: a rather little-known writer, born in 1905, died 1990, who published 5 novels, _Heyday_ in the early '50s, then 4 very short, utterly charming, stories of men and woman and guiltless affairs, published from 1978 through 1985. Spackman was a Philadelphian, at a guess "Main Line" or very close, very patrician, rather academic (he was a professor by main career), seemingly quite well off. His later novels (the early Heyday is somewhat uncharacteristic: sadder, dealing with younger people), are all concerned with older (and very well-off) men (usually in their 50s) in guilt-free adulterous relationships with younger women (from late teens to 40s in the various books). As such they have always struck me as full of wish-fulfillment. On the other hand, it's a wish that part of me secretly shares. Moreover, the prose style of these novels is stunning, gorgeous, complex, utterly elegant: worth reading almost as poetry.Anyway, I had assumed (rightly until this book) that Spackman's stuff was OP: over time I've tracked down the novels in used book stores, but I've had a secret hope that I missed one, or that there might be short stories, or ... anyway something! Went over to the S's. No expectations of success whatsoever. And what do I see: _The Complete Fiction of W. M. Spackman_. All five published novels (Heyday in a much revised form that he was working on when he died), one never-published novel, and two short stories!What a find! This is a new book, published in 1997 by The Dalkey Archive Press. And I should plug that publisher: they seem to have been formed to republish the works of Flann O'Brien (another of my "secret pleasures", though O'Brien is actually quite well known), as they take their name from the title of one of O'Brien's novels, but they also publish a number of other very deserving writers.And Spackman is very deserving indeed. As I have said he is most obviously notable for his bravura prose, but his characters are well-limned, and the events are funny and interesting. And behind all the blithe lovemaking is the shadow of aging and coming death: even in Heyday, which is about people in their 20s. Beautiful stuff.