A review by rpmirabella
In a Shallow Grave (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) by James Purdy

4.0

Purdy is not for you if you expect to like or see yourself in characters. You will not see yourself in his work. I never have, and that's great! His interests were not to transcribe reality, to comfort, to relate. His novels and stories, rather, expose the naked, painful, unreachable desires of his characters, and of all of us if we can admit it. This one, like NARROW ROOMS, is about desire and loneliness, fear, and dangerous love. Our narrator elicits sympathy in us because of his war injuries, as well as disgust because he can be pathetic cruel, and because he's a racist. In the intro, Schenker calls this Garnet's "conflicting racial attitudes," but it's just racism. I'm not saying Purdy was racist. I don't know that. But his character is. And really, when you read work by old white men, it's hard to know what you're going to get. It can be a little uncomfortable reading Purdy's portrayals, but honestly, every portrayal in his work causes discomfort. I think he was motivated by sexual desire, by his own tastes and desires, which may repel you.

Quintus, a Black man who becomes a kind of companion to Garnet, the main character, is almost a cipher, until he becomes one of the most powerful forces in the book. Purdy does this a lot, shifts power from one character to another. It's interesting. There are several reversals of love in this work. Just to see how Purdy controls these forces is astounding, and worth reading the book to witness.