The History of the Ginger Man

by J. P. Donleavy

Overview

This is the dramatic story of J. P. Donleavy's personal struggle to create and publish a book that became a twentieth-century masterpiece: The Ginger Man . It is literally history combined with Donleavy's autobiography -- from his childhood in the Bronx, education at Catholic schools, service in the U.S. Navy, and travels, to his current life as proprietor of a landed estate in the midlands of Ireland. Trinity College in Dublin after World War II was a mecca for adventurous Americans who used the G.I. Bill as a passport to higher education,. Among them were able-bodied seamen, second class J.P. 'Mike' Donleavy, fighter pilot George Roy Hill (now a celebrated Hollywood actor), and a naval yeoman Gainor Stephen Crist, a Midwestern rara avis and model for the Ginger Man. Student life included degrees in debauchery; drunken brawls in Dublin pubs; comic capers with the playwright Brendan Behan; eccentric Anglo-Irish aristocrats; living on miraculous credit and in constant debt with plenty of time for the seduction of nice Catholic girls. Donleavy, impecunious and newly married, began to write The Ginger Man in a primitive isolated cottage at Kilcoole. He completed the book over a period of four years on two continents. The Ginger Man was rejected by nearly thirty-five American and British publishers. The book was finally published in Paris in 1955 by Maurice Girondias of the Olympia Press as a work of pornography. Twenty-five years of biter litigation between Donleavy and Girodias followed, with Donleavy emerging triumphant as sole owner of Olympia and its copyrights, including that of The Ginger Man.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781843512097
Publisher:	Lilliput Press, Limited, The
Publication date:	09/01/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	520
File size:	3 MB

Editorial Reviews

From the author of The Ginger Man comes a history of that novel from its inception to its British publication in 1956. And, like The Ginger Man , it is a blasphemous read, mainly because many of the characters who inhabit the novel are here. Readers will be struck by the major role played by Brendan Behan, Donleavy's editor and tipster who knew a publisher willing to take on The Ginger Man. In 1952 Donleavy, with his wife and child left Ireland, where he had lived after graduating from Trinity, to return home to New York City. In the U.S., after becoming depressed over McCarthyism and over the many rejections of his manuscript, he and his family headed to England. It was there that Behan suggested that the manuscript be submitted to Olympia Press in Paris, the publisher of Samuel Beckett. To Donleavy's outrage, The Ginger Man appeared under Olympia's Traveller's Companion Series, a pornographic imprint. After much legal haggling over ownership of the British and American rights, the novel was published in Britain, and Donleavy outmaneuvered Maurice Giroudias to become the owner of Olympia Press and, in his own words, ended up ``actually in litigation with myself.'' An interesting, if at times self-serving study of author and work that will appeal only to Donleavy's most dedicated fans. Photos. Author tour. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Donleavy is a gifted storyteller, and this memoir is as vivid and entertaining as the The Ginger Man itself. Donleavy recounts the four years he spent writing this popular novel in Ireland and America, describing his real-life adventures with the likes of Gainor Stephen Crist, the model for protagonist Sebastian Dangerfield, and the infamous playwright Brendan Behan, among others. As in the novel, drinking, fighting, and sex figure prominently. Donleavy also relates his struggle to find a publisher for a book that many people by 1950s standards considered obscene. After 35 rejections he finally found success with the Olympia Press in Paris, but the affair turned into a bitter 25-year legal battle. Recommended for contemporary literature collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/93.-- William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY

Library Journal

With the Olympia Press' issuing of Donleavy's first and best-known work, "The Ginger Man", an interminable, 21-year legal battle ensued between author and publisher. The distinctive cadences of Donleavy's prose enliven this autobiographical account that meanders through the years leading up to the appearance of his book in print and subsequent altercation between publishers. From Dublin's Trinity College to a dismal row house in London's Fulham district, Donleavy recalls the settings of his struggles as a writer while supporting a young family. Accompanying him on numerous pub-crawling jaunts amid fisticuffs are the likes of Brendan Behan and a colorful cast of characters--many of whom were the basis for characters in "The Ginger Man". Other literati (Edna O' Brien, Muriel Spark, etc.) help animate the rambling narrative. Toward the end of the book, the pace picks up, engaging the reader more fully in the ups and downs of Donleavy's literary career in the making.

Alice Joyce