I’m posting this as a note; part a/ so that I have to come back with a part b/…
She flitted through my mind, old interviews and some of my own early wonderment [triggered by a 1989 issue of the often useful Review of Contemporary Fiction, in this case one dedicated to MY, Kathy Acker and Christine Brooke-Rose] at her and her work, never quite resolved [mostly available in Dalkey Archive Press].
If the words US, 20th C. and utopian spirit don’t work in your mind -cults don’t count- then you ought to get to know MY…
That edition of RCF’s interview is here; “…abandoned utopias. I would say my theme has always been paradise lost, always the lost cause, the lost leader, the lost utopia.”
For now then, a fan page of photographs [why not?!] here.
And a Paris Review interview from 1977 is here
New editions of her books available in the UK today start at 0.1p… and $0.40 in the US; an unequivocally good sign!
UPDATE 5 Sep 2022!
‘She understood that all truly ambitious literary projects will unsettle the reading public and are, by their very nature, doomed to teeter on the brink of failure. “I think anyone who tries anything real—think Proust or Dostoevsky—risks being an absolute fool,” she told Charles Ruas in 1977, and she took this pitfall as a kind of dare: “But if you’re mistaken, be terribly mistaken!” I believe that Young was not mistaken. With Miss MacIntosh she succeeded in executing what I consider to be an entirely original vision, though her intent has often been neglected and misunderstood.’
I am avoiding elaborating my own thoughts by shamelessly linking you to the Introduction by MEGHAN O’GIEBLYN to the new DAP edition of Miss Macintosh, My Darling that was recently published online by N+1:
LINK: More Is More
PDF: More Is More | Online Only | n+1 | Meghan O’Gieblyn Sorry, have removed the PDF immediately, since everyone is linking to it not the online page! Will post when the link gives up…?
NOTES FROM A FRUITSTORE 