James McCourt (writer)

James McCourt
"The central photo was taken by Laura Rubin a long time ago, and the ones on the far right were taken even longer ago: Jimmy McCourt in Central Park the summer before we met at Yale in '64 and me getting on a boat in Amsterdam in '65." Vincent Virga
Born	(1941-07-04) July 4, 1941 (age 84)
Occupation	Writer novelist
Nationality	American
Education	Yale School of Drama
Partner	Vincent Virga

James McCourt (born July 4, 1941) is an American writer, known for his "extended fictions" featuring an overlapping, recurring cast of often camp and bizarre characters. His notable works include his debut fiction Mawrdew Czgowchwz (1975), Kaye Wayfaring in "Avenged": Four Stories (1984) and nonfiction Queer Street (2003).

Work

McCourt was raised in Jackson Heights, Queens. ^[1] McCourt has been with his life partner, novelist Vincent Virga, ^[2] since 1964 ^[3] after they met at Yale University as graduate students in the Yale School of Drama. ^[3]

McCourt is best known for his extravagant debut Mawrdew Czgowchwz (1975), about a fictional opera diva. Regarding his first book, he once told the New York Times Book Review: "Nowhere on the book does it say it's a novel. In a novel, something is wrapped up, it finishes. But my stories just stop. Sure, Mawrdew Czgowchwz is an extended fiction, but it never wraps up." McCourt went on: "A novel is something I don't get around to doing or don't want to do. I'm writing about this extended tribe of people, instead of writing about a family as J.D. Salinger does." His Now Voyagers (2007) is the first in a series of projected sequels to Mawrdew Czgowchwz.

McCourt has garnered praise from critics Susan Sontag and Harold Bloom and has been championed by author Dennis Cooper. Sontag directed McCourt's Mawrdew Czgowchwz to her publisher's attention, ^[2] while Bloom named a later work, Time Remaining, to his influential Western Canon. ^{[4] [5]}

McCourt's and Virga's papers are held ^[6] at Yale's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Bibliography

Fiction

• Mawrdew Czgowchwz (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1975)
• Kaye Wayfaring in "Avenged" (stories) (Viking, 1985)
• Time Remaining (stories) (Knopf, 1993)
• Delancey's Way (Knopf, 2000)
• Wayfaring at Waverly in Silverlake (stories) (Knopf, 2002)
• Now Voyagers (Turtle Point Press, 2008)

Nonfiction

• Queer Street: Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985 (W. W. Norton, 2003)
• Lasting City: The Anatomy of Nostalgia (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2013)

Shorter writings

• “Come Back, Harry Fannin!” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (Summer 1990): 184-86.
• “Introduction.” Severo Sarduy, “Cobra” and “Maitreya.” Normal: Dalkey Archive Press, 1995, pp. xi-xviii.
• “Not Some Brainless Beauty” [book review of Faye Dunaway’s Looking for Gatsby]. New York Times Book Review, 10 December 1995, p. 39.
• “Prima Donna” [book review of Kim Chernin’s Cecilia Bartoli]. New York Times Book Review, 16 March 1997, p. 16.
• "Gass's Hamlet." In Into "The Tunnel": Readings of Gass's Novel. Edited by Steven G. Kellman and Irving Malin. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1998, 21-29.
• “The Actors Who Reflect the Stars.” New York Times, 23 March 2003, sec. 4, p. 13. [On best-supporting actor award]
• "Riding Shotgun with the Almighty." Los Angeles Times Book Review, 2 October 2005. [book review of Dennis Cooper's God Jr.}
• "The Canticle of Skoozle." Triple Canopy no. 14 (13 September 2011).
• [On semicolons]. Apology no. 1 (Winter 2013): 133-35.
• “Vissi d’Arte (The Memoirs of Morgana Neri, As Confided to ‘Oroviso’).” Pleasure: A Journal of the Arts, September 2015, pp. 37-58.

References

1. Southgate, Patsy. "James McCourt: On Divas and Drag Queens". The East Hampton Star. Archived from the original on December 23, 2018. Retrieved November 22, 2015.
2. Foley, Dylan. The Advocate, March 5, 2002 Opera soap: author James McCourt enjoys the encore publication of the zany opera novel he wrote two decades ago
3. Virga, Vincent. "Home - Vincent Virga". Vincentvirga.com. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
4. Bloom, Harold. The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. Appendixes. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994
5. Robert, Teeter. "Bloom. Western Canon". Interleaves.org. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
6. Danijela True; Jennifer Meehan. "Guide to the James McCourt and Vincent Virga Papers". Drs.library.yale.edu. Retrieved 11 November 2017.

Further reading

• Hoffman, William Moses. "The Interior Landscape of James McCourt." Los Angeles Times Magazine, 31 October 1993, PP. 30–34.
• Moore, Steven. "James McCourt." My Back Pages: Reviews and Essays (LA: Zerogram Press), 2017, pp. 239–42.
• ------. * L.A. Times review of Now Voyagers
• Rollow, David. "'That was Czgowchwz, her story, history': The Fictions of James McCourt." Hollins Critic 45.2 (April 2008): 2-27.