Tobias Wolff And The First Novels That Writers Wish Were Forgotten
Out of pique or posturing authors occasionally disparage their early work. Saul Bellow referred to his pre-Augie output, Dangling Man and The Victim, as his Masters and PhD, respectively; “I find them plaintive, sometimes querulous,” he told The Paris Review. Anthony Burgess, 23 years and 30-some-odd novels after the publication of A Clockwork Orange, groused, “The book I am best known for, or only known for, is a novel I am prepared to repudiate,” and impugned it as “a jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks[.]” John Steinbeck was only slightly more charitable towards Cup of Gold: A life of Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer, with Occasional [...]
