My rating:
add to my books
Loading...
Misfit: The Strange Life of Frederick Exley
In Misfit, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic of The Washington Post portrays in full one of the most tormented, distinctive, and talented writers of the post-war years. Frederick Exley's story, which in Yardley's telling reads as if it were a novel, reveals a singular personality: raunchy, vulgar, self-centered, and even infantile, yet also loyal, self-deprecating, an...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
May 25th 2001
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
(first published August 5th 1997)
There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!
sign in »
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
78)
Kirk
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
fans of A Fan's Notes
Shelves:
sentimental-faves
I was actually late to the Fan's Notes fan club, having first met Exley in the pages of Rolling Stone. I actually like his other books more than Yardley does, though they're certainly not in the same league as FE's 1968 cult classic. Ultimately, one's appreciation for this book depends upon one's tolerance for peripatetic fuck-ups, serial adulterers, unapologetic spongers, absentee parents, unrepentent misogynists, urine-stained alcoholics, and all around unheroic, flame-out figures. Apparently,...more
I have to say that Fredrick Exley’s trilogy (the semi-autobiographical novels: A Fan’s Notes, Letters From A Cold Island, Last Notes From Home) made a strong impression on me as undergraduate. So I thought Jonathan Yardley’s biography, Misfit: The Strange Life of Frederick Exley, would prove illuminating and entertaining. My reaction was mixed. It provided some interesting biographical information as well as some interesting anecdotes, but it also portrays him as a narcissist, selfish with an u...more
for everyone who ever considered living on mom's couch an alternative lifestyle.
Only 3 great things came out of Watertown NY. My mother, John Phillips, and Exley.
Weird, interesting guy. I feel sorry for him, which I think he'd absolutely hate.
The true story behind the true story?
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
