George Garrett – författare

There is a special joy in seeing a virtuoso at work, achieving the fulfillment of his art. In a prodigious literary career, demonstrating a virtually limitless range, George Garrett’s dazzling versatility has won high esteem and critical acclaim for his novels, plays, poetry, biography, and short fiction.  Now, as testimony to George Garrett’s vivid storytelling powers, An Evening’s Performance: New and Selected Short Stories encompasses some of his best work of the past thirty years. Widely admired for his masterworks of Elizabethan times, Garrett’s stories here are contemporary, colloquial, humorous, bittersweet, deeply felt without sentimentality. Garrett’s gift for language, his forthright and compelling style touch the heart and ignite the senses, as he gives us stories of war and uneasy peace; of soldiers and movie-makers; of families, ghosts, preachers, teachers, and religious conmen. Stories that create a vision quintessentially American, yet universal in spirit.

"I have read Death of the Fox," writes O. B. Hardison, Director of The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D. C., "and feel that I have probably participated at the inception of a major literary event. The novel is a brilliant and unique work. I know of nothing quite like it in recent American fiction. It is wholly conversant with the fiber, texture, and grain of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. In its sweep it takes us from the arrival of the Tudors in 1485 all the way to October 29, 1618, when Ralegh was executed. It covers . . . the policy, the religious disputes, the warfare, the rivalries of various political factions, the magic of Queen Elizabeth and the crafty folly of James I, Essex and Bacon, Leicester and Sir Edward Coke, Marlow and Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones! Incredibly, it is all these, not only in broad sweep, but in an infinitude of jewel-like details, each meticulously exact, but at the same time adding up to a sort of literary mosaic, creating an artistic fabric more enchanting, more real than a whole portfolio of photographs."

“This is surely the best historical novel in many years,” wrote Peter S. Prescott in Newsweek about Death of the Fox, George Garrett’s unparalleled reentry, into the heart of the English Renaissance. His new novel, The Succession, is surely the finest since: a triumph of intellect and imagination that once more brilliantly re-creates Elizabethan England.After decades of rule, Elizabeth I lies dying. She has overcomes the Spanish, the Pope, power-hungry noblemen, even her beloved Essex. England is prospering under her; she is, they say, married to it. Who will succeed her? Who can? To read The Succession is to be plunged into the last days of this great age, to experience its humanity, color, pageantry, and drama; its grandeur, squalor, splendor, and folly. And to better imagine the procession that came before us (in any land) and the succession to follow.

Completing his masterful trilogy of novels set in Elizabethan England, Garrett again applies distinguished literary skills to spin a tale dark with deception and metaphysical questions but teeming with sensuous and concrete details that convey the spirit of the age. In 1597, when it seems that "half the people in England are spying on the other half," two Londoners skilled in deceit are forcibly enjoined by rival factions to investigate the recent death of dissolute poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe. Each of the two--Joseph Hunnyman, "common player" and con man, and Captain William Barfoot, soldier and spy--is aware of the other''s investigation, but they come together, only through a third party, the provocative widow Alysoun. Like an impressionist painting, vivid in its small, shimmering details, the novel conveys a picture of Renaissance society, offers richly nuanced character portraits, and sparkles with bawdy humor and robust sexuality. Garrett''s prose is oblique, his sentences arrestingly truncated, his narrative method seemingly digressive; in no rush to spill out his story, he circles round and round its mysterious core. Though the plot here is less compelling than those of the two previous novels, readers will enjoy a novel of rare literary quality, richly marinated in research, wondrously steeped in the world it artfully depicts. –PW

Since 1964, when Louisiana State University Press published its inaugural book of verse (Miller Williams's A Circle of Stone), its poetry list has grown exponentially- 191 books by 93 poets- into a program that inspires understandable pride in those associated with it. Two collections have won the Pulitzer Prize- The Flying Change (1986), by Henry Taylor, and Alive Together (1996), by Lisel Mueller. Another book by Mueller, The Need to Hold Still (1980), won the National Book Award, while several other LSU titles have been finalists for that distinction, most recently The Fields of Praise (1997), by Marilyn Nelson, and The Vigil (1993), by Margaret Gibson. Dozens more have been recognized for their excellence through a host of various honors. The Press publishes the winner of the annual Walt Whitman Award, given by The Academy of American Poets for a first collection; and in 1996 it launched the Southern Messenger series in collaboration with Dave Smith, bringing two shining works into the fold each year. The appearance of The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren in 1998 meant for the Press the realization of a long, dearly held dream.To mark this thirty-five-year-old tradition as the century and millennium turn, and to offer a sampling of its richness, The Yellow Shoe Poets, a retrospective anthology, was compiled under the editorship of George Garrett, a longtime colleague of the Press and the author of eight poetry volumes. (Say ""the LSU poets"" real fast with a southern drawl and you get the ridiculously wonderful moniker that poet Elizabeth Seydel Morgan's young friend innocently mistook for this noble band. It's an image Brendan Galvin has appropriated to a perfect fit in his poem Yellow Shoe Poet, written on behalf of his fellow ""yellow shoes"" across the years.)All 173 poems are taken from LSU Press books and were selected by the poets themselves, if living. Arranged alphabetically by author, they consist of at least one poem from every poet published by the Press. Goethe's admonition that ""one ought every day at least, to read a good poem"" can find no better starting point than in The Yellow Shoe Poets.

In this, his third book of poetry, Garrett presents recent poems that enhance a reputation already well established for charm of language, a frank and perceptive approach to experience, strong images, and a large understanding of life and feelings. The three sections comprising the book are well differentiated, moving from the casually actual to the neatly satirical to depth poems.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

A shotgun marriage of fact and fiction by one of the most highly regarded writers and teachers of our time

A writer named George Garrett, suffering from double vision as a result of a neurological disorder, is asked to review a recent, first biography of the late Peter Taylor, a renowned writer who has been his long-time friend and neighbor in Charlottesville. Reflecting on their relationship, Garrett conceives of a character—not unlike himself—a writer in his early 70s, ill and suffering from double vision, named Frank Toomer. He gives Toomer a neighbor, a distinguished short story writer named Aubrey Carver. As the real George Garrett and Peter Taylor are replaced by two very different and imaginary writers, the story becomes a wise and insightful exploration of American literary life, the art of biography, the comical rivalries among writers and academics, notions of success, and the knotty relationship of art to life, fact to fiction, and life to death. Double Vision is a witty tour de force and an elegy for a gifted generation of writers.  

"Going to See the Elephant is a safari into the wilds of the mind of George Garrett, and a more interesting place to explore is hard to imagine. Whether he (or his beleaguered alter-ego, John Towne) is examining the writing life, tipping his hat to other writers, or fulminating about the sorry state of the world we live in, he is well worth a listen - both for the sheer pleasure of it and for the wisdom to be found in it."  —R.H.W. Dillard, author of Understanding George Garrett

This collection of essays by novelist and poet, George Garrett presents his meditations on the art and craft of writing. Garrett is the author of 32 books and among his many honours are the Rome Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.