Fare Forward: Letters from David Markson Paperback - 2014 - 01st Edition

Media reviews

"In 2003, the poet Laura Sims wrote a gushing fan letter to the experimental-fiction writer David Markson. (“ ‘Perfect’ is the one word I would choose to describe your work as a whole,” she wrote.) 'Fare Forward,' a new book, collects Markson’s side of their ensuing correspondence, which continued until 2010, when he died at 82."
—New York Times Book Review

"Readers familiar with the late novelist's work will find much in these pages; but even readers with only a passing familiarity will be rewarded."
—Publishers Weekly

"I like that the title is positive, forward-looking, and optimistic in a way, because I think that there’s actually an optimism in his writing that is often buried, but is sort of always there, a strange optimism that I can’t quite describe."
—Full Stop

"An intimate, lively portrait of Markson through short letters, Fare Forward is a perfect companion to Markson's books and a moving, spare chronicle of the last few years of his life.”
—Brian Evenson

"Oh how beautiful to hear David Markson's voice one more time, off-hand, casually erudite, vulnerable, engaged, open, humble. These letters provide a precious glimpse into the way an extraordinary writer moved through the world. It gives us fragments of the sensibility he used and transformed into his life's work. There is such poignancy here, as he grapples with solitude, or the passing of time, or the re-election of George W. Bush, or finding a new form for his next novel in the last years of his life. There’s so much heart and soul there. 

There was once a time I would run into David regularly at the wine store on Seventh Avenue in the Village or other such places and we would often linger and talk--it was always part gossip, part literature, part angst what-will-ever-become-of-us-as-writers stuff. How I long to speak with him one more time! Fare Forward brings back the man, intimately and with great immediacy and I am deeply grateful for it, every word. Thank you Laura Sims.”
—Carole Maso

Citations

• Publishers Weekly, 04/07/2014, Page 0