Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)

A revelatory masterpiece that I have had on my shelves for forty-one years without reading; just as much an autobiography of Dahlberg's early years as it is a portrait of his hapless mother. She brought up Edward working as a "lady barber" in Kansas City at the beginnings of the twentieth century. Lizzie Dahlberg emerges as a fabulous figure, so beautifully wrought by her son's descriptions of the enduring love he holds for her, despite disgust, pity, poverty and the hopelessness of the men show more in her life.

There is much humour here as well, including this gem of a sentence:
"After all, he had answered her matrimonial advertisement and his second visit, like the first, was already so prolix that again she realized she would be too tired after he left to take an enema."

It is time to revive Edward Dahlberg. He was put down by that professional Irishman, Frank McCourt who concocted "Angela's Ashes". He held modern writing as rubbish. Dahlberg had such a store of classical, mythological and theological knowledge that his story glistens with spectacular allusions.
Read this man, buy his books. Demand his resurrection. show less

What an odd book! A melancholy erudite prolix meditation on the follies of the drive to procreation, or rather, the act of procreation.

Perhaps it is more profound than that. But after an initial flush of pleasure I found it tedious.

A novel about the brutalities of orphanage life. Mr. Dahlberg was a clear writer, and quite prominent in American Expatriate life in Paris.

Edward Dahlberg had been brought up in the lower levels of the USA in the 1920's and his writings brought him a rewarding life for half a century. Many famous names are found in this selection.