Life
1926- [John Patrick]; b. 25 April, Brooklyn, NY; son of Irish-born fireman;
raised in Woodlawn, bordering on Westchester district; US Navy wartime
experience; studied zoology at TCD on GI Bill, 1946; member of the so-called
“Catacombs” grouping, with Behan and Cronin; legendary American
Gainor Crist on G.I. Bill, hero of The Ginger Man (1955), central
character Sebastian Dangerfield; dropped out of TCD to write the novel,
living in penury in cottage nr. Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow; Behan enthuses
about The Gingerman suggesting MS changes
and recruiting Sam White of Evening Standard to place it with Maurice
Girodias of Olympia Press; embroiled in long-term litigation concerning
publication in the latter’s soft-porn Traveller’s Companion
series in 1955, culminating with Donleavy’s take-over of the firm
in c.1980; a Dublin stage performance withdrawn after clerical pressure,
1959, following which Donleavy published script as What They Did in
Dublin with the Ginger Man (1961); The Gingerman banned in
Ireland for 20 years; subsequently issued Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar
B. (1968), a picaresque novel dealing with Irish school-days, and
The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman (1977), set in midlands
Ireland; became Irish citizen, purchasing a country house nr. Mullingar;
issued The History of the Ginger Man (1994), an autobiography;
issued The Lady Who Liked Clean Rest Rooms (1997), a novel featuring
Jocelyn Guenevere Marchantiere Jones, denuded of husband, children, and
fortune, but not of spirit; also An Author and His Image (Viking),
collection of journalism; Wrong Information is Being Given Out at Princeton
(1998), saga of Stephen O’Kelly’O, penniless composer and
womaniser. DIL OCAL OCEL OCIL
[ top ]
Works
The Ginger Man (Olympia 1955; US 1958; Penguin 1968); another edn.,
with intro. by Arland Ussher (London: Spearman 1956), xi, 292pp.; another
edn. (London: Transworld Publishers 1963), 347pp.; What They Did in
Dublin with the Ginger Man (MacGibbon & Kee 1961); Fairy Tales
of New York (1973), play; A Singular Man (Bodley Head 1963;
Penguin 1966), novel; The Saddest Summer of Samuel S. (1966; Penguin
1968); The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B. (1968; Harmondsworth:
Penguin 1970), all dramatised by the author; also The Onion Eaters
(NY 1971), surrealistic; Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gent. (1977),
picaresque; Schultz (1979; Penguin 1979), American farce set in
England; Collected stories Meet My Maker, the Mad Molecule (1964;
Penguin 1967); The Unexpurgated Code (1975), parody on etiquette
books; Leila (NY Franklin Library 1983); Are You Listening,
Rabbi Law (London 1987); A Singular Country (Ryan 1989), 198pp.
[ded. ‘to all who dare to come to the stern but irresistable land
and then dare to stay [and] to Connor Stephen Crist of Dayton, Ohio];
The History of the Ginger Man (London: Viking 1994), 517pp.; The
Lady Who Liked Clean Rest Rooms: The Chronicle of One of the Strangest
Stories Every To Be Rumoured About Around New York (NY: Little, Brown
1997), 119pp., pb. edn. (Abacus 1998), 125pp.; An Author and His Image:
The Collected Short Pieces (London: Viking), 308pp. [journalism];
Wrong Information is Being Given Out at Princeton (NY: Little Brown
1998), 237pp. See also articles by Donleavy cited in David Seed, 1991
[infra].
[ top ]
Criticism
K. Jacobsen, interview with J. P. Donleavy in Journal of Irish Literature,
8 (January 1978).
REVW, The History of the Ginger Man, An Autobiography (Viking 1994), 517pp; reviewed by Patrick Skene Catling in Irish Times, 4 Jun 1994; [details as biog. above]
Thomas Le Clair, ‘A Case of Death, The Fiction of J P Donleavy, in Contemporary Literature, 11 (Summer 1979).
Dean Coen, ‘The Evolution of Donleavy’s Hero’, Critique, 12 (1971), pp.95-100.
M F Schulz, Black Humor in Fiction of the Sixties (Ohio UP 1973); interview with McKaughan, ‘The Art of Fiction’ 53, J P Donleavy, Paris Review, 63 (Fall 1975) [p.159]
Donald E. Morse, ‘From Heaven to Hell: Ireland in the Novels of J.P. Donleavy’, in Wolfgang Zach and Heinz Kosok eds., Literary Interrelations: Ireland, England and the World, Vol. III: National Images and Stereotypes (Tübingen: Guntar Narr Verlag, 1987), pp.217-22.
Patrick W. Shaw, ‘The Satire of J. P. Donleavy’s Ginger Man’, in Studies in Contemporary Satire, 12 (1985): pp.22-26 [var. 1.2, 1975, pp.9-16].
Phil Baker, in Times Literary Supplement (24 June 1994), backpage [p.36].
Patrick Skene Catling, reviewing John de St Jorre, The Good Ship Venus: The Erotic Voyage of Olympia Press (Hutchinson 1994), in The Irish Times (3 Sept. 1994).
Mary Kenny, reviewed by An Author and his Image: The Collected Short Pieces (London: Viking), in Magill (Oct. 1997).
Ellen Beardsley, notice on The Lady Who Liked Clean Rest Rooms (NY: Little, Brown 1997), 119pp.
Patrick Skene Catling, reviewing The Author and His Image, in Irish Times (?30 Aug. 1997).
Alex Ivanovitch, Times Literary Supplement (10 April 1998), p.23.
Brendan Glacken, reviewing Donleavy’s Ireland, in All the Sins and Graces series (Network 2), in Irish Times (29 Dec 1992).
David Seed, ‘Parable of Estrangement, The Fiction of J. P. Donleavy’, in Paul Hyland and Neil Sammells, eds., Irish Writing, Exile and Subversion (Macmillan 1991), , pp.209-23.
[ top ]
Oxford Companion to American Literature (1983), bio-data: Irish parents; The Ginger Man, a lusty comic novel about red-bearded ex-GI [Bill] and the grubby life that he and his wife lead in Ireland and London; dramatised and produced in England (1961). Oxford Companion to English Literature (ed. Margaret Drabble) adds nothing but the word ‘bawdy’.
Hibernia Books (1996) lists The Ginger Man (Spearman 1955; Paris: Olympia 1958); A Singular Man (Bodley Head 1964). Hyland (Cat. 224) lists Leila [Franklin Library] (1983) [ltd. edn.].
Online: A “J. P. Donleavy Compendium” maintained by David David L. Hartzheim on Earthnet contains Biography, Bibliograpy, Interviews, &c. [link].
Big House: Christine Case and Alistair Rowan, The
Buildings of Ireland, North Leinster (Penguin), in the Pevsner architectural
series, notes that Levington Hall, the home of the eccentric Sir Richard
Levinge in Co. Westmeath, is now the home of J. P. Donleavy. Further,
Levinge conceived the idea of training grapes so that he could pluck them
in his bedroom, and fixing a mirror to the ceiling of his diningroom to
enjoy the ‘natural beauties’ of the ladies at the table.
Derek Mahon, “J. P. Donleavy’s Dublin”: ‘When you stop to consider / The days spent dreaming of a future [...] the years, the years / Fly past anti-clockwise / Like clock-hands in a bar mirror.’ (Lives, 1972, p.13).
Desmond MacNamara, The Book of Intrusions (Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press 1994) is a novel from the author of a biography of de Valera who first appeared as MacDoon in The Ginger Man, is called ‘the Einstein of Irish literature’ by J. P. Donleavy. ‘Ignore Donleavy’, remarks Books Ireland, in “First Flush” notice [q.d.]. (COPAC cites titles on Papier Maché and Puppetry as well as the above.)
David H. Greene: ‘Have you read The Ginger Man yet? Frank O’Connor told me the other night that he has been arguing about it with Dan Binchy. Binchy things [sic] Miss Frost is a splendid character but that the rest of the book is mere pornography. Frank natually disagrees. I can’t understand myself how a young Amercan could have written so typically Irish a book.’ (Unpublished Letter to Sybil Le Brocquy, headed New York State University, 16 Dec. 1969.)
[ top ]
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)