The Alphabet Man - Softcover

Grossman, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0932511775 ISBN 13: 9780932511775

Publisher: Fiction Collective 2, 1993

Synopsis

Alternating chapters trace poet and murderer Clyde Wayne Franklin's journey through the dark side of Washington, D.C., as he tries to help a blackmailing friend, and return to the past to revisit his childhood of abuse and Satanic ritual

About this title

From the Publisher:

This first novel by a gifted poet was well received upon its publication by FC2 in 1993: it won the Illinois State University/Fiction Collective Two National Fiction Competition and was nominated for a PEN West Fiction Prize; ALA Booklist called it "one of the best novels of any year."

From Publishers Weekly:

The lettered narrator of the title is a man fascinated by language and by murder in this amusing, yet ultimately grim, first novel by poet Grossman ( The Animals ). Clyde Wayne Franklin is the country's best-known poet. He is also an ex-convict. A chance encounter with a pastor who is also a former assassin for the U.S. Army makes clear the depths of Franklin's obsession. It turns out that he killed his own father and possibly others along the way. The exploration of this tormented and complex man forms the basis for Grossman's work. From the beginning, there are hints of abuse by Franklin's father. These become clearer as the book progresses, skipping back and forth through time and space. In the present, Franklin searches for his girlfriend, a prostitute in Washington, D.C. In his memory, he relives and attempts to come to grips with his childhood. All of this is not, however, unrelentingly morbid. Dark humor enlivens what is essentially an absurdist, postmodern fairy tale probing the psyche of a serial killer. In Grossman's confident hands, Franklin is like the hero of a Poe story, who talks to prove to the listener that he is sane and only succeeds in proving the reverse.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fiction Collective 2
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0932511775
• ISBN 13: 9780932511775
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 443