Pursued by Furies: A Life of Malcolm Lowry - Hardcover

Bowker, Gordon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002155397 ISBN 13: 9780002155397

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1993

Synopsis

Malcolm Lowry's classic novel "Under the Volcano" established him as a writer of genius and one of the most original voices of the 20th century. This biography of Lowry looks at how his writing reflected aspects of his own life. An incurable alcoholic from the age of 16, drink and writing were the only two constants in Lowry's life that was as extraordinary as his fiction. He seemed to lurch from one drama to another, including two turbulent marriages, his years as a bohemian writer in London, Paris and Mexico, his struggles with alcohol and his violent and largely unexplained death.

About this title

About the Author:

Gordon Bowker taught sociology at Goldsmiths' College London from 1966 to 1991 (for six years teaching courses in biography).

From the Inside Flap:

y often doused his talent in alcohol, was haunted by coincidence, worshipped some unsavoury heroes, turned himself inside out so that his gentleness splintered into violence, and, above all, lived forever in fear that he might be found out.

Lowry is hounded--a college friend dies, a manuscript is stolen, a home is burned down, a marriage disintegrates unfathomably--and he always flees.  His bewitching letters entrance first one wife, then another; but rarely does stability last.  In and out he goes--of bars, of countries, of clinics, of jail--eventually achieving some kind of respite in Dollarton, British Columbia, where he manages to carve out of his curious experience in Mexico his magnificent novel Under the Volcano.

Gordon Bowker's great achievement is to set before us Lowry's epic, frustrating story, its contradictions and comedies intact, without distortion or embellishment: friends, relatives, wives and doctors, archives, letters and tr

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0002155397
• ISBN 13: 9780002155397
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 688