26 – Review

Jerome Klinkowitz (b. 1943), critic

Donald Barthelme (1931-1989), author

Literary scholar Jerome Klinkowitz, with Asa Pieratt and Robert Murray Davis, produced the first Donald Barthelme bibliography (1977). Klinkowitz admired Barthelme and other writers such as Kurt Vonnegut, authors whose work he called innovations, literary disruptions, subversions, and personal fictions in post-contemporary American fiction. This case presents multiple stages of Klinkowitz’s review of new fiction by Barthelme and Jerzy Kosinski that he wrote for the Chicago Review in 1973. From the original notes fleshing out his thoughts through multiple typescript drafts, these manuscripts reflect the evolution, including the title, of Klinkowitz’s review.

All items from the Donald Barthelme papers

  1. Klinkowitz, Jerome. “Insatiable Art and the Great American Quotidian.” Chicago Review, vol. 25, no. 1, 1973, pages 172–177. Autograph notes and typescripts with autograph revisions of Jerome Klinkowitz’s review of Barthelme’s Sadness and Jerzy Kosinski’s The Devil Tree. Includes multiple drafts heavily corrected by Klinkowitz and photocopy of the published article (Chicago Review, Fall 1973)