Fare Forward: Letters from David Markson Paperback - 2014 - 01st Edition

"In 2003, the poet Laura Sims wrote a gushing fan letter to the experimental-fiction writer David Markson. (“ ‘Perfect’ is the one word I would choose to describe your work as a whole,” she wrote.) 'Fare Forward,' a new book, collects Markson’s side of their ensuing correspondence, which continued until 2010, when he died at 82."
—New York Times Book Review

"Readers familiar with the late novelist's work will find much in these pages; but even readers with only a passing familiarity will be rewarded."
—Publishers Weekly

"I like that the title is positive, forward-looking, and optimistic in a way, because I think that there’s actually an optimism in his writing that is often buried, but is sort of always there, a strange optimism that I can’t quite describe."
—Full Stop

"An intimate, lively portrait of Markson through short letters, Fare Forward is a perfect companion to Markson's books and a moving, spare chronicle of the last few years of his life.”
—Brian Evenson

"Oh how beautiful to hear David Markson's voice one more time, off-hand, casually erudite, vulnerable, engaged, open, humble. These letters provide a precious glimpse into the way an extraordinary writer moved through the world. It gives us fragments of the sensibility he used and transformed into his life's work. There is such poignancy here, as he grapples with solitude, or the passing of time, or the re-election of George W. Bush, or finding a new form for his next novel in the last years of his life. There’s so much heart and soul there. 

There was once a time I would run into David regularly at the wine store on Seventh Avenue in the Village or other such places and we would often linger and talk--it was always part gossip, part literature, part angst what-will-ever-become-of-us-as-writers stuff. How I long to speak with him one more time! Fare Forward brings back the man, intimately and with great immediacy and I am deeply grateful for it, every word. Thank you Laura Sims.”
—Carole Maso

David Markson earned his reputation as a master innovator of 20th and 21st-century fiction with his iconoclastic approach to plot, narrative, and character. His critically acclaimed novels include: Springer's Progress (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977), Wittgenstein's Mistress (Dalkey, 1988), Reader's Block (Dalkey, 1996), This is Not a Novel (Counterpoint, 2001), and Vanishing Point (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004). Born in Albany, New York in 1927, Markson earned an M.A. from Columbia University and worked as a journalist, book editor, and sometime college professor. Although he considered himself well known for being unknown, Markson's circle of readers and fans has continued to grow since his death in 2010. Laura Sims is the author of three books of poetry, including My god is this a man (Fence Books, 2014). She has been the recipient of a Creative Arts Exchange Fellowship and the Fence Books Alberta Prize. Sims has written book reviews and essays for Rain Taxi, New England Review, Boston Review, and The Review of Contemporary Fiction. She teaches literature and creative writing at NYU and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son. Ann Beattie's most recent book isMrs. Nixon (Scribner, 2011).The New Yorker Stories(Scribner, 2010)was named one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times. Her story Janus was included in John Updike'sThe BestAmerican Short Stories of the Century. She lives with her husband in Maine.