Wald, Alan M.

Exiles from a Future Time

ISBN: 0807853496
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. First Softcover Edition. Trade Paperback. Inscribed & signed by Alan M. Wald to Laurence Goldstein. “On 9 July 1945, Guy Endore, a popular novelist and Hollywood screenwriter, awoke as usual before dawn. Of wiry build with brownish blond hair and blue eyes, Endore weighed a trim 145 pounds and stood five feet seven-and-a-half inches tall, looking at least a decade younger than his forty-five years. As he reached for the pad and pencil that always rested near his bedside to record his waking thoughts, a characteristically gentle yet enigmatic smile spread across his face. Politically, Endore was what historians of the Literary Left would regard as an orthodox “Stalinist.” In 1934, even before formally joining the Communist Party, he wrote the New Republic to criticize an editorial that condemned the violent disruption by Communists of a Socialist Party meeting in Madison Square Garden, which was called to defend the armed struggle of Social Democrats in Austria against the dictatorship of Engelbert Dollfuss. The Communists’ thuggish seizure of the Socialists’ platform was one of the manifestations of the disruptive “United Front from Below” strategy of the Communist International that drove one-time Party sympathizers such as John Dos Passos (1896-1970), Edmund Wilson (1895-1972), and Lionel Trilling (1905-1975) to publicly oppose the Party. Endore, however, insisted that the Socialists, not the Communists, were responsible for creating the divisive provocation; he accused them of excluding Communists from the speakers’ list, confiscating a Communist banner, and inviting a conservative to address the rally.”--Alan M. Wald, “Introduction,” pg. 1. Alan M. Wald (b. 1946), is an American professor emeritus of English Literature and American Culture at our beloved University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and writer of 20th-century American literature who focuses on Communist writers; he is an expert on the American 20th-Century "Literary Left.” Offered today is his 2002 work, Exiles form a Future Time. From back cover: “With this book, Alan Wald launches a bold and passionate account of the U.S. Literary Left from the 1920s through the 1960s. Exiles from a Future Time, the first volume of a trilogy, focuses on the forging of a Communist-led literary tradition in the 1930s. Exploring writers’ intimate lives and heartfelt political commitments, Wald draws on original research in scores of archives and personal collections of papers; correspondence and interviews with hundreds of writers and their friends and families; and a treasure trove of unpublished memoirs, fiction, and poetry. In fashioning a “humanscape” of the Literary Left, Wald not only reassesses acclaimed authors but also returns to memory dozens of forgotten, talented writers. The authors range from the familiar Mike Gold, Langston Hughes, and Muriel Rukeyser to William Attaway, John Malcolm Brinnin, Stanley Burnshaw, Joy Davidman, Sol Funaroff, Joseph Freeman, Alfred Hayes, Eugene Clay Holmes, V.J. Jerome, Ruth Lechlitner, and Frances Winwar. Focusing on the formation of the tradition and the organization of the Cultural Left, Wald investigates the “elective affinity” of its avant-garde poets, the “Afro-cosmopolitanism” of its Black radical literary movement, and the uneasy negotiation between feminist concerns and class identity among its women writers.” From the collection of Lawrence Goldstein (1943-2023), a renowned American poet, author, film critic, editor & academician here at the University of Michigan. Signed & inscribed by Alan M. Wald to Lawrence Goldstein in thin red ink at half-title page: “To Larry / My oldest friend & / mentor in / Ann Arbor, who / helped me write / this book – / Affectionately, / Alan.” Trade-format softcover. First softcover edition though not explicated as such at copyright page, first printing as indicated by number sequence thereon. In very fine condition with minimal wear to fine edges, and slight smudging to front and back covers, original price sticker affixed to back cover from "Shaman Drum Bookstore," the premiere and now defunct local bookstore owned by Karl Pohrt (1948-2013), our friend and mentor. Interior very fine. Very Fine. [Item #8255]

Price: $75.00