Memoirs of a Bastard Angel

by Harold Norse, James Baldwin (Preface)

Harold Norse has spent half a century simultaneously at the center and in the vanguard of literary and homosexual subcultures. His career began in 1939, when W. H. Auden seduced and married Norse's college lover, Chester Kallman. In Greenwich Village Norse became an intimate of James Baldwin (then working on his first novel) and in Provincetown lived with Tennessee Williams, who was completing The Glass Menagerie. In 1952, William Carlos Williams presented Norse at his reading debut calling Norse "the best poet of your generation" Other admirers included Anais Nin, Dylan Thomas, Christopher Isherwood, and e.e. Cummings. In the 1960s in Paris, Norse codeveloped the innovative Cut-up method while living in the Beat Hotel with William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso. In North Africa, Greece, and Spain Norse befriended Robert Graves, Leonard Cohen, and Paul and Jane Bowles. Repatriating to Venice, California, in 1968, Norse formed a literary alliance with Charles Bukowski (who called him "one of the great ones") and lifted weights with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Under any circumstances this book would be a major social document, but because he is a superb, evocative stylist, Harold Norse's candid autobiography is an engrossing classic of its kind.

"Harold Norse's beautiful Memoirs (are) going to be right by my bedside with Flaubert and Marquez. It's an exalted work" - Andrei Codrescu, All Things Considered, National Public Radio

"Magically evocative and visual, Memoirs of a Bastard Angel literally reads itself.” - William Burroughs

"Harold Norse has lived a life beyond my powers of imagination." -Armistead Maupin

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, LGBT

448 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 1989

About the author

Harold Norse was an American writer, openly gay, who created a body of work using the American idiom of everyday language and images. One of the expatriate artists of the Beat generation, Norse was widely published and anthologized.

Reviews

[Tom Leland · Rating 3 out of 5]

6 out of 10. It felt like a need to not only share his interesting and accomplished life, but also to claim credit for much that he felt unacknowledged for. That was annoying, as was what felt like a constant need to showcase, and perhaps normalize, his sexual adventures. Certainly the world needs to acknowledge homosexual love as normal, in that it is and always has been a significant aspect of the human condition...and was all the more needed in 1989. It just can make for tiresome reading. But all in all, Norse led a fascinating life, and I enjoyed all the literary anecdotes and gossip.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harold Norse has written, and published, sixteen books and won several awards for his poetry. He's led an interesting life, hobnobbed with the famous (and sometimes rich), and had sex with more men than more people will meet in a lifetime. makes for interesting reading.

[Richard Jespers · Rating 2 out of 5]

A poet’s memoir. Unlike Mark Doty, however, Norse's prose is NOT engaging. Some of the anecdotes are gossipy and entertaining, though.

[Pewterbreath · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting when he's talking about others--he provides fascinating insight in the rogues galley of artists, writers, celebrities and ne'er do wells he associated with, from the lost generation to the beats to hippies.

When he's talking about himself however, it gets tedious. Not his life experiences per se, but anything having to do with his body count as well as other people gushing over how brilliant he was, that's when it gets much. Unfortunately that's half the book.

[Matt Proctor · Rating 5 out of 5]

great writer

[Alex Jackman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Memoirs of a Bastard Angel: A Fifty Year Literary and Erotic Odyssey are the memoirs of the poet Harold Norse. Following him across the world and through various social circles, the book is a veritable who's who of the queer and literary scenes, and their intersection, from the 40s through the 60s. Norse was friends or bedmates with a laundry list of people like Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, James Baldwin and William Carlos Williams.

The memoirs, subtitled a Literary and Erotic Odyssey, follow him across the United States, to Paris, Italy, and Tangier. It covers a critical period at "The Beat Hotel", where he worked with the beats to perfect the cut-up style of poetry and prose, and details his important relationships with important artists of his generation and those previous. The book is a tell all in the truest sense of the word(s), filled with delicious gossip and salacious details, name dropping famous writers, musicians, and artists throughout.

Though at times a bit self congratulating and at others a bit whiny, the book is a mostly enjoyable read that would be of interest to anyone who is a fan of the author or his famous friends. In parts the book does drone along at a laborious pace, but all is forgotten when you get to another passage about the crazy adventures of the literary elite.