This book may well become one of the classics of twentieth-century autobiography.

Gilbert Highet

An Autobiographical Novel

Literature by Kenneth Rexroth

When the poet Kenneth Rexroth died in 1982, he left behind a sequel to An Autobiographical Novel (1966). His published memoir––all 365 pages of it––stopped at 1927, when the twenty-two-year-old writer and his first wife, Andrée, were about to settle in California. Now revised and expanded, An Autobiographical Novel includes reminiscences that cover another twenty years of literary life and two more marriages. Linda Hamalian, author of A Life of Kenneth Rexroth (W. W. Norton, 1991), sifted through more than 300 pages of raw tape transcriptions. Weighing fact against fictions (Rexroth loved a tall tale and relished gossip), Hamalian has prepared a valuable index that identifies obscure allusions and the real people who figured in Rexroth’s emotionally tumultuous life. “It adds up to a very good read,” she says. “I am willing to bet a nice chunk of money that readers will wish Rexroth had been able to go on and on loosening his talk-tapes.”

Paperback(published Nov, 01 1991)

ISBN
9780811211796
Price US
23.95
Portrait of Kenneth Rexroth

Kenneth Rexroth

20th Century American poet, essayist, and translator.

This book may well become one of the classics of twentieth-century autobiography.

Gilbert Highet