cover image The Complete Fiction of W. M. Spackman

The Complete Fiction of W. M. Spackman

W. M. Spackman, William Spackman. Dalkey Archive Press, $44.95 (640pp) ISBN 978-1-56478-157-4

This juicy omnibus reissuing all five of Spackman's previously published novels, plus his last, unpublished novel and his only two short stories, is something of a literary event. Despite his ostensibly sexist assumptions (women as ""girls,"" born romantics and quarry; men as predators), his eros-obsessed novels offer a thoroughly modern, offbeat analysis of the delusions and perils of modern love. A virtuoso stylist dismissed by many as contrived and hailed by others as an American master, William Mode Spackman (1905-1990) created his own inimitable prose style, a mix of cheeky wordplay, studied eloquence, slang and breezy spontaneity that melded interior monologue, conversation and external action. Reprinted here are Heyday (1953), his first novel, a chronicle of Depression-era Greenwich Village sexcapades; An Armful of Warm Girl (1978), a roundelay of adulterous unions; A Presence with Secrets (1980), a lush portrait of a libertine painter; A Difference of Design (1983), his farcical makeover of Henry James's The Ambassadors; and A Little Decorum, for Once (1985), both a defense of adultery and a metafictional exploration of the craft of writing. Spackman's posthumous novel, As I Sauntered Out, One Midcentury Morning--his most straightforward work--takes up his theme of adultery as a civilized business as it follows the romantic exploits of a political journalist who grows disillusioned with his wealthy uncle. ""Dialogue at the End of a Pursuit"" (1985), a very short story, casts the battle between the sexes as a dance of mutual withholding and anticipation. Pursuit also drives ""Declarations of Intent"" (1987), the witty story of a wary woman editor wooed by a Princeton classicist. Studded with disarming observations and gorgeous, one-of-a-kind sentences, Spackman's writing is a sensuous delight. Like Jane Austen, he exposes savage passions lurking beneath civilized exteriors. (Apr.)