Description:
First published in Paris in 1955 and originally banned in America, J. P. Donleavy's first novel is now recognized the world over as a masterpiece and a modern classic of the highest order. Set in Ireland just after World War II, The Ginger Man is J. P. Donleavy's wildly funny, picaresque classic novel of the misadventures of Sebastian Dangerfield, a young American ne'er-do-well studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Dangerfield's appetite for women, liquor, and general roguishness is insatiable--and he satisfies it with endless charm. "Lusty, violent, wildly funny ... The Ginger Man is the picaresque novel to stop them all.
First published in Paris in 1955 and originally banned in America, J. P. Donleavy's first novel is now recognized the world over as a masterpiece and a modern classic of the highest order. Set in Ireland just after World War II, The Ginger Man is J. P. Donleavy's wildly funny, picaresque classic novel of the misadventures of Sebastian Dangerfield, a young American ne'er-do-well studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Dangerfield's appetite for women, liquor, and general roguishness is insatiable--and he satisfies it with endless charm. "Lusty, violent, wildly funny ... The Ginger Man is the picaresque novel to stop them all."--Dorothy Parker, Esquire
JPD's The Ginger Man remains the work for which the author is most famous. Donleavy's autobiographical works, JP Donleavy's Ireland, A Singular Country, and especially The History of The Ginger Man go into detail about the trying years of completing the manuscript, the scores of rejections by publishers and its final first publication by Olympia Press, Paris, which set into play yet more years of grief and litigation. Additional background is often discussed in Donleavy interviews.
First titled "Sebastian Dangerfield," the book was retitled "The Ginger Man" by Donleavy with some pressure by Olympia Press for a more provocative title. There are scores of guesses and is much speculation about the title, would-be meanings ranging from slang for male genitalia to the most commonly believed theory: a connection to the childhood tale of The Gingerbread Man, whose song, "Run, run, as fast as you can; you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man" does seem to fit Dangerfield's M.O.
Some (fancy credentials don't exclude people from being eejits at times) in the literary world consider Donleavy's later works to be either weaker re-workings of The Ginger Man or not up to the debut novel's standards. Readers with open minds, and most important, open hearts, know otherwise. However, The Ginger Man is, and will always be the work most associated with James Patrick Donleavy. It has become a modern classic, translated into dozens of languages and published in hundreds of editions. It has never been out of print in over a half century, and despite bans, years of litigation, piracies, and weak distribution by publishers in the last 20 years, the book thrives.
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Manufacturer: Abacus
Release date: 6 March 1997
ISBN-10 : 0349108757 |
ISBN-13: 9780349108759
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