If you have not yet read Purdy, do so. Otherwise, go fuck yourself. This stuff wipes the floor clean with whatever other collection you're considering slash reading at the moment. This is not the collection you buy out of obligation 'round X-Mas for a fair-weather friend - this is the stuff you share with the people you actually love. All one or two of them.

A few were so unique and so good...some were so depressing....

Eventide"She walked over to the chair where Plumy was and laid her hand on her. Somehow the idea of George Watson's being dead so long and yet still being a baby a mother could love had a kind of perfect quality that she liked. She thought then, quietly and without shame, how nice it would be if Teeboy could also be perfect in death, so that he would belong to her in the same perfect way as George Watson belonged to Plumy. There was comfort in tending the grave of a dead son, whether he was kill...

Read all Purdy's published short stories in this book. The variety of subjects he writes about is truly amazing: And it's all about different human relationships. Purdy's focus on what people really think about opens a deeper awareness in the reader's mind. There's little that superficial in his treatment. This author is definitely worth reading.

I am so glad I found Purdy. What a revelation. Why had I not heard of this author? Even if I only gave this 4 stars it still made my best reads list. Such weird stories but so delightful in their unique vocabulary and descriptions. The characters are not what you would expect. The outcomes are not what you expect at all. Of course not all were winners (why it only got 4 stars) but who cares. This was a huge collection and you can't love 'em all. This also has a bonus introduction by John Waters

Some dark. Some twisted. Some mundane. Some totally nuts. Pie sex! Creepy sex! Sexy creepiness! So much here, I knew it was impossible to love it all, but I did love some of it quite a bit, especially the moments when the stories veered slightly off the track and into the unreal.

DNF. A character in a novel I read mentioned this author, so I checked out a book by him. I suppose if you’re looking for portraits of idle folia in the South, it might be interesting. I’ve slugged through over 100 pages and eight stories, and I’m leaving.

Think of The Complete Stories of James Purdy as a ten-pound box of poison chocolates you keep beside your bed – fairy tales for you twisted mind that should never be described to the innocent. Randomly select a perfectly perverted Purdy story and read it before you go to sleep and savor the hilarious moral damage and beautiful decay that will certainly follow in your dreams. James Purdy writes gracefully disquieting stories for the wicked and here they all are at last. Every single damned one o

hmm. the consistent lapses into depraved, explosive queer love at times seems more like an affliction than style, but that feels like the point. the love is interior violence and so so twisted but it does make sense. it just does. there's no choice in it, or it's a choice between being made catatonic and exiled by one moment of doubt, or folding yourself forever into the meat of another person and burrowing yourselves deep underground. whirring to intensity always, but every story seems to wrap

When the bizarre is the norm your nightmares become mere dreams; yet what wonderful dreams. This collection of short stories is just that -- a myriad of prose poems engaging your soul and fulfilling needs beyond your imagined life. All you need is to sit back, read, and enjoy!

Deeply, deeply weird. And probably more realistic than the average realist's work....

I think I like Purdy’s short work even better than his novels. There are some excellent ones in here, and all are pretty solid at the very least. I live the characters, the word choice, and a host of other aspects. An excellent writer to be sure.

An important collection--far more prolific than Burroughs and in many ways, creepier. It isn't the sad, closeted homosexuality that comes through as creepy, not at all; it's the recurring vignettes and scene elements--almost Kafka-esque. So glad I took on this book, what a glimpse into the difficult lives of gay men in the mid-20th century. In so many stories, there's almost a predictable archness and weird fixation on sweets, desserts and the like. There's a gossipy tone to many of the stories

Literally spellbinding, a must-read book by an emblematic american author.

I am so glad I finished this book. Best collection of short stories I have ever read.

Even though I'm not a fan of this type of short stories, "Brawith" made me have some mixed feelings regarding whether or not I like it or not. I pretty much enjoyed how the story built up to the climax, but I feel like the plot revolves more around Moira's experience rather than Brawith's. Even though Purdy describes Brawith's "burden" with some gross details, I feel like that's what it needed in order to give us that chilling vibe. His illness is the plot's main idea, and how it affects Moira.

The book is a peculiar set of stories full of peculiar relationships: family life, lovers, loners, widows, grass widows, parents and children, siblings and a lot of strangers… And any simple life situation may suddenly seem to be weird…She picked up a large palm straw fan from the table and fanned with angry movements the large patches of sweat and talcum powder on her immense meaty body. As Lafe watched her move the fan, he thought how much money had gone to keep her in food these seven peculia...

A black comic banquet of wonder, despair, and strange, terrible beauty. Nobody does American Gothic like Purdy. His body of literature is one of the most profoundly sorrowful, stirringly poignant, and deeply weird in English letters. This fabulous collection allows you to appreciate his incredible imagination across the decades in all its many shapes. (It only suffers from the lack of a proper introduction: John Waters’ forward is great hype, but it’s not context.) I loved every minute of it.

This is the fourth time I've attempted to post a review. So I'll keep it short. Purdy is a singular and important writer but not for passive readers. Most of this collection demonstrates a range and insight that goes far beyond John Waters' (?) superficial intro, which plays up the freaky slant of a handful of stories. There is a smattering of pulpish gay tales and forgettable "magazine fiction", but on the whole a wide array of human problems--some unusual, some mundane--move, terrify, amuse or...

His stories may have been groundbreaking and there are plenty of literary notables who admire his work, but I'm not feeling it.