James McCourt (born July 4, 1941) is a

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

''Queer Street'', p. 5 American-born writer and novelist who was raised in

Jackson Heights, Queens Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the borough of Queens in New York City. Jackson Heights is neighbored by North Corona to the east, Elmhurst to the south, Woodside to the west, northern Astoria ( Ditmars-Steinw ...

. McCourt has been with his

life partner The term significant other (SO) has different uses in psychology and in colloquial language. Colloquially, "significant other" is used as a gender-neutral term for a person's partner in an intimate relationship without disclosing or presuming ...

, novelist Vincent Virga,Foley, Dylan. The Advocate, March 5, 2002
Opera soap: author James McCourt enjoys the encore publication of the zany opera novel he wrote two decades ago
/ref> since 1964 after they met at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

as graduate students in the

Yale School of Drama The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University is a graduate professional school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1924 as the Department of Drama in the School of Fine Arts, the school provides training in e ...

. McCourt's and Virga's papers are held at Yale's

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library () is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the largest buildings in the world dedicated to rare books and manuscripts. Es ...

Work

McCourt is best known for his extravagant novel '' Mawrdew Czgowchwz'' (1975), about a fictional opera diva, and his 2003 nonfiction book ''Queer Street'', about gay life in New York City after World War II. His novel, ''Now Voyagers'' (2007), is the first in a series of projected sequels to ''Mawrdew Czgowchwz''.

Acclaim

McCourt has garnered praise from critics

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

and

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking wor ...

and has recently been championed by author

Dennis Cooper Dennis Cooper (born January 10, 1953) is an American novelist, poet, critic, editor and performance artist. He is best known for the ''George Miles Cycle'', a series of five semi-autobiographical novels published between 1989 and 2000 and describ ...

. Sontag directed McCourt's first novel, ''Mawrdew Czgowchwz'', to her publisher's attention, while Bloom named a later work, ''Time Remaining'' to his influential Western Canon. ''Mawrdew Czgowchwz'' was brought back in print in 2002 with a new introduction by

Wayne Koestenbaum Wayne Koestenbaum (born 1958) is an American artist, poet, and cultural critic. He received a B.A. from Harvard University, an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University and is a 1994 Whiting Award recipi ...

Bibliography

Fiction * '' Mawrdew Czgowchwz'' (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1975) * ''Kaye Wayfaring in "Avenged"'' (stories) (Viking, 1985) * ''Time Remaining'' (stories) (Knopf, 1993) * ''Delancey's Way'' (Knopf, 2000) * ''Wayfaring at Waverly in Silverlake'' (stories) (Knopf, 2002) * ''Now Voyagers'' (Turtle Point Press, 2008) Nonfiction * ''Queer Street: Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985'' (W. W. Norton, 2003) * ''Lasting City: The Anatomy of Nostalgia'' (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2013) Shorter writings * “Come Back, Harry Fannin!” ''Review of Contemporary Fiction'' 10.2 (Summer 1990): 184-86. * “Introduction.” Severo Sarduy, ''“Cobra” and “Maitreya.”'' Normal: Dalkey Archive Press, 1995, pp. xi-xviii. * “Not Some Brainless Beauty” ook review of Faye Dunaway’s ''Looking for Gatsby'' ''New York Times Book Review'', 10 December 1995, p. 39. * “Prima Donna” ook review of Kim Chernin’s ''Cecilia Bartoli'' ''New York Times Book Review'', 16 March 1997, p. 16. * “The Actors Who Reflect the Stars.” ''New York Times'', 23 March 2003, sec. 4, p. 13. n best-supporting actor award* "Riding Shotgun with the Almighty." ''Los Angeles Times Book Review,'' 2 October 2005. ook review of Dennis Cooper's ''God Jr.''

*
The Canticle of Skoozle
" ''Triple Canopy'' no. 14 (13 September 2011). * n semicolons ''Apology'' no. 1 (Winter 2013): 133-35. * “Vissi d’Arte (The Memoirs of Morgana Neri, As Confided to ‘Oroviso’).” ''Pleasure: A Journal of the Arts'', September 2015, pp. 37-58.

References

External links

Critical

about ''Now Voyagers''

New York Times review of ''Now Voyagers''

feature on

's blog Interviews
Bookworm: James McCourt
interview on KCRW (1993) {{DEFAULTSORT:McCourt, James 1941 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American male novelists American gay writers American LGBT novelists 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers

Work

Acclaim

Bibliography

References

Further reading

External links