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Tito Perdue

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Tito Perdue
Born1938 (age 85–86)
Sewell, Chile
OccupationNovelist
NationalityAmerican
Website
titoperdue.com

Tito Perdue (born 1938) is an American novelist. His works include his 1991 debut novel Lee.

Personal Life

Perdue was born in Chile to American parents and brought up in Anniston, Alabama. In 1957, aged 18, he married his wife Judy (née Clark), a fellow student at Antioch College. He worked as a university library administrator before retiring to his family's Alabama property in 1982 to write full-time.[1][2][3][4] He first wrote The Sweet-Scented Manuscript; though this was his fourth novel to be published.[5]

Judy Clark Perdue was a librarian and professor of biology at Floyd College and elsewhere.[4][6] She is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society (London) and other learned associations.[4][6]

The Perdues have one daughter.[4][6] They live in Centreville, near Brent, and Wetumpka, Alabama.[7][2]

Work

Many of Perdue's novels chronicle the life of Leland "Lee" Pefley,[8] an alter ego who, Perdue explains, "actually carries out actions that his creator would often wish to perform if he but had the courage."[9] In order, these are The Smut Book (Pefley aged 11), Morning Crafts (aged 13), The Sweet-Scented Manuscript (at college), The New Austerities (aged 42), Journey to a Location and Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Shall Come (both aged 70), Materials for All Future Historians (aged 71), Lee (aged 72) and Fields of Asphodel (in the afterlife).[5][10] An aged Pefley also features prominently in the first half of Reuben.[11] The lives of Lee's forebears are chronicled in Opportunities in Alabama Agriculture and the four-volume William’s House, for which Perdue drew on records of his own family history.[1]

Perdue's novels are picaresques, built of "disjointed episodes."[7][12] He explains: "I don't believe that prose should be translucent. I don't believe that plot is all that matters. I believe that language matters greatly. ... My books have very little plot. I don't even like plot."[1] Perdue often incorporates elements of fantasy (like active volcanoes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Alabama)[13] and, in later novels, science fiction (like the "escrubilator," an indescribable "omni-competent" machine).[14]

Reception

Critical Reception

Perdue's novels have encountered "critical but not much popular success."[3]

Critics have commented on Perdue's "idiosyncratic" prose.[3] Anne Whitehouse of the New York Times finds Lee "vitriolic and hallucinatory, yet surprisingly lucid, producing a portrait both exceedingly strange and troubling."[12] Jim Knipfel of the New York Press praises Perdue's "fluid, consciously musical prose,"[15] "full of rage but under complete control," noting that it becomes "progressively textured and more savage" with time.[1] However, Publisher’s Weekly finds that Lee "sinks under the weight of its own pretensions";[16] and Dick Roraback of the Los Angeles Times complains of Perdue's eccentric (mis)usages in The New Austerities.[17]

Thomas Fleming calls the Pefley sequence "some of the best satire on contemporary America";[8] and Kirkus Reviews notes the "marvelous black comedy" in Lee.[18] Antoine Wilson of the Los Angeles Times finds "tone-deaf caricature" in some satirical passages of Fields of Asphodel, but praises its "utterly charming and brilliantly comic" denouement.[19]

Academic Reception

Lee is discussed in Bill Kauffman's analysis of secessionist literary fiction in Bye Bye, Miss American Empire (2010).[20]

Political opinions

Perdue is a member of the League of the South.[1]

Bibliography

Novels

  • Lee, Four Walls Eight Windows, 1991 (ISBN 9780941423397); 2nd ed., Overlook Press, 2007 (ISBN 978-1-58567-872-3); 3rd ed., Arktos, 2019 (ISBN 9781912975280).
  • The New Austerities, Peachtree Press, 1994 (ISBN 978-1-56145-086-2); 2nd ed., Standard American, 2023 (ISBN 9781642640359).
  • Opportunities in Alabama Agriculture, Baskerville Press, 1994 (ISBN 978-1-880909-24-9); 2nd ed., Standard American, 2023 (ISBN 9781642640311).
  • The Sweet-Scented Manuscript, Baskerville Press, 2004 (ISBN 978-1-880909-68-3); 2nd ed., Arktos, 2019 (ISBN 9781912975389).
  • Fields of Asphodel, Overlook Press, 2007 (ISBN 978-1-58567-871-6); 2nd ed., Standard American, 2023 (ISBN 9781642640212).
  • The Node, Nine-Banded Books, 2011 (ISBN 978-1-61658-351-4).
  • Morning Crafts, Arktos, 2013 (ISBN 978-1-907166-57-0).
  • Reuben, Washington Summit, 2014 (ISBN 9781593680237); 2nd ed., Standard American, 2022 (ISBN 9781642641950).
  • The Builder: William's House I, Arktos, 2015 (ISBN 9781910524343).
  • The Churl: William's House II, Arktos, 2015 (ISBN 9781910524336).
  • The Engineer: William's House III, Arktos, 2016 (ISBN 9781910524954).
  • The Bachelor: William's House IV, Arktos, 2016 (ISBN 9781910524381).
  • Cynosura, Counter-Currents, 2016 (ISBN 9781940933863).
  • The Philatelist, Counter-Currents, 2017 (ISBN 9781940933986).
  • Philip, Arktos, 2017 (ISBN 9781912079889).
  • The Bent Pyramid, Arktos, 2018 (ISBN 9781912079858).
  • Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Shall Come, Counter-Currents, 2018 (ISBN 9781940933894).
  • The Gizmo, Counter-Currents, 2019 (ISBN 9781642641202).
  • The Smut Book, Counter-Currents, 2020 (ISBN 9781642641424).
  • Love Song of the Australopiths, Standard American, 2020 (ISBN 9781642641462).
  • Materials for All Future Historians, Standard American, 2020 (ISBN 9781642641639).
  • Journey to a Location, Arktos, 2021 (ISBN 9781914208263).
  • Vade Mecum, Standard American, 2021 (ISBN 9781642641837).

Short Fiction

Nonfiction

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Knipfel, Jim (June 12, 2001). "Tito Perdue: America's Lost Literary Genius". New York Press. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  2. ^ a b R. Stacy McCain, "Tito Perdue, Literary Genius,"The Other McCain (17 April 2009). Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  3. ^ a b c Don Noble, "Fields of Asphodel (A Novel), by Tito Perdue," apr.org (22 December 2008). Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d https://archive.org/details/whoswhoofamerica0000marq/page/1256/mode/1up?q=%22tito+perdue%22&view=theater
  5. ^ a b Alex Kurtagić, "A Reactionary Snob," Alternative Right (3 November 2011). Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  6. ^ a b c https://archive.org/details/whoswhoinsouthso0000unse_l0m5/page/627/mode/1up?q=%22tito+perdue%22&view=theater
  7. ^ a b Don Noble, "The Node," apr.org (15 August 2012). Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  8. ^ a b Thomas Fleming, "A Lost Art," Chronicles (December 1996), p. 35. https://www.unz.com/print/Chronicles-1996dec-00034/
  9. ^ Derek Turner, "A Visionary Reactionary," The Quarterly Review (spring 2008), p. 4. Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  10. ^ Adam J. Young, "Book Review: Though We Be Dead Our Day Will Come [sic] - by Tito Perdue," Heritage and Destiny, no. 87 (November - December 2018), p. 17.
  11. ^ Mike C. Tuggle, "Starry-Eyed Varlet," abbevilleinstitute.org (9 May 2014). Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  12. ^ a b New York Times, 24 November 1991.
  13. ^ Publishers Weekly (3 October 1994).
  14. ^ Greg Johnson, "Turning the World Around: Tito Perdue’s The Node," Counter-Currents (16 August 2013). Retrieved 9 September 2014.
  15. ^ Jim Knipfel, "Go South, Young Man," New York Press, vol. 16, no. 32 (2003). Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  16. ^ Publishers Weekly, 29 July 1991. Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  17. ^ Dick Roraback, "Fiction," Los Angeles Times, 15 January 1995. Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  18. ^ "Lee by Tito Perdue". Kirkus Reviews. June 15, 1991. Retrieved October 18, 2016.
  19. ^ Antoine Wilson, "The Misanthrope," Los Angeles Times (15 July 2007). Retrieved 9 September 2024.
  20. ^ Kauffman, Bill. Bye Bye, Miss American Empire: Neighborhood Patriots, Backcountry Rebels, and Their Underdog Crusades to Redraw America's Political Map (White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green), p. 188.
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