Frederick Exley

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Frederick Exley , (born March 28, 1929 in Watertown , New York , † June 17, 1992 ibid) was an American writer. His best known work is the novel A Fan's Notes .

Life

Frederick Exley's life was heavily influenced by his father. He died when Exley was 16 years old. Exley wanted or had to emulate his role model as a successful athlete and then a basketball coach for a long time - or it was held against him.

In 1946, Exley was seriously injured in a car accident and was unable to graduate from high school on time. Following a job as a railroad worker, he attended John Jay High School in Katonah and was elected to the local league's all-star basketball team. He then attended Hobart College in Geneva in 1949 . A year later he went to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles . There he began to pursue the sporting career of a fellow student, the future football star Frank Gifford, until he became obsessed - something that would later be reflected in his book A Fan's Notes . He escaped service in the army in 1951 because his injuries sustained in the car accident in 1946 made him incapacitated.

In 1952, Exley left the University of Southern California for New York. In 1953, however, he returned to Los Angeles and graduated with a bachelor's degree in English. He then went back to New York, where he worked in the PR department of the New York Central Railroad . In 1954 he was transferred to Chicago, where he worked for the Rock Island Railroad and was the editor of the company newspaper.

In 1956 he was released - to which his increasing alcoholism had contributed. In the following years he was a drinker, mentally unstable, and increasingly stuck into his obsession with sports. In 1958, Exley was admitted to Stony Lodge in Westchester County . There he met Francena Fritz. In 1959 he was transferred to Harlem Valley State Hospital. After his release, he married Francena Fritz on October 31, 1959 and moved with her to Greenwich, Connecticut . In Port Chester he got a job as a teacher. In 1960 his daughter Pamela Rae Exley was born.

In 1961 Francena Fritz divorced. Exley then taught in various locations in New York State. His increasing alcoholism, however, meant that these jobs were short-lived and often interrupted by stays in mental institutions. In 1965 Exley met Nancy Glenn in Florida. In 1966 she divorced her husband and moved in with Exley. In 1967 Exley's second daughter Alexandra Exley was born, and in 1968 a severely disabled son, Robert Brandon Exley. During this time, Exley was working on his second novel, Pages From A Cold Island .

As early as 1964, Exley had submitted the manuscript of A Fan's Notes to Houghton Mifflin - but it was rejected. Brokered by an agent, it was finally published in 1968 by Harper & Row . Although the book did not sell too well, it received a lot of critical attention. As a result, it was nominated for a National Book Award , received a William Faulkner Award for best first novel, and received a Rosenthal Award . Exley also received a $ 10,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation . The book also had a strong influence on other writers, especially representatives of New Journalism , with its subjective style and everyday themes. Hunter S. Thompson was heavily influenced by Exley's style and repeatedly referred to it as one of his favorite books.

In 1970, Exley's mother bought a house in Alexandria Bay . Exley moved in - and was to live there for the next 20 years, interrupted by stays in Florida and Hawaii. In 1971, Exley and Nancy Glenn divorced, and his son died that same year. In 1972, Exley was a visiting professor at the University of Iowa . In the same year, A Fan's Notes was filmed in Canada. In 1975, Exley's second novel Pages from a Cold Island appeared , but received less criticism than his first.

In 1984 Exley received a scholarship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation . In 1988 his third book Last Notes From Home was published . He died on June 10, 1992 of complications from a heart attack . He was buried in Brookside Cemetery in Watertown, New York.

bibliography

  • A Fan's Notes , Harper & Row, 1968
  • Pages from a Cold Island , Random House, 1975
  • Last Notes from Home , Random House, 1988

About Frederick Exley

  • Jonathan Yardley: The Strange Life of Frederick Exley , New York, Random House, 1997

Footnotes and individual references

  1. ↑ Walter Kirn: Sad Sack Superman , Slate, August 20, 1997
  2. ↑ A Fan's Note's fan's notes , The Guardian, September 21, 2007
  3. ^ Hunter S. Thompson: Fear and Loathing in America. The Gonzo Letters, Volume II , Touchstone, New York, 2000, p. 273, letter to Bill Cardoso dated January 29, 1970: “I've been brooding over my copy of A Fan's Notes for more than a year ... It's a terrible fucking book - breaks every conceivable rule, etc. - for some reason it's one of the best thing I've read in years. "

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Exley, Frederick
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Watertown , New York
DATE OF DEATH 17th June 1992
Place of death Watertown , New York