James Patrick Donleavy

The Ginger Man

A Complete Manual of Survival & Manners

The Unexpurgated Code

When three hungry soldiers come to a town where all the food has been hidden, they set out to make soup of water and stones, and all the town enjoys a feast.

The Saddest Summer of Samuel S

Jocelyn Guenevere Marchantiere Jones, sometime resident of Scarsdale, educated at Bryn Mawr, has been brought up always to behave like a lady. But what with chiselling divorce lawyers, fraudulent advisors and importunate and oversexed suitors, the patience of even the most impeccable lady might wear thin. Which is why Joy ends up with a pair of matching Purdey shotguns across her knees and a .38 Smith & Wesson under her pillow, waiting for the next lying bastard to cross her threshold. Trigger happy she may be, and no longer quite welcome in polite society, but Joy James, one of J. P. Donleavy's most inspired comic creations, will always follow her South Carolina granny's advice on the matter of clean rest rooms, a preference which had some rather surprising consequences... A hilarious and charming novella from the author of such classics as THE GINGER MAN and A FAIRY TALE OF NEW YORK.

The Chronicle of One of the Strangest Stories Ever to Be Rumoured about Around New York

The Lady Who Liked Clean Rest Rooms

The Chronicle of One of the Strangest Stories Ever to be Rumoured about Around New York

The Lady who Liked Clean Rest Rooms

The Ginger Man, by J.P. Donleavy

Perennially short of funds, Cornelius Christian accepts a job at a funeral home in order to pay for his wife's burial. A series of madcap adventures commences in what Donleavy calls "the great sad cathedral that is New York City".

A Fairy Tale of New York

Schultz

Een berooide aristocratische man die op zijn voorvaderlijke bouwvallige landgoed in Ierland verblijft droomt nog steeds van Leila

That Darcy, that Dancer, that Gentleman

Nathan Johnson, forty-eight and restless, began his career as a door-to-door lingerie salesman, reaching the top of the rag trade with a penthouse overlooking Manhattan. A `confirmed social climber' in 1990s New York City, he looks back on his early struggles, indulging fantasies of life as a country squire on Blueberry Hill - the Westchester estate he buys his wife Muriel as a birthday present. He meets a model from Iowa, different from the rest, and is captivated. When, out of the blue, a letter marked `personal' arrives, his wife opens it and life unravels

A Letter Marked Personal

After the war, Stephen O'Kelly marries the beautiful and affluent Sylvia, yet his life is quickly turned upside down when his new bride leaves him and he is cut off from her family fortune.

Wrong Information is Being Given Out at Princeton

The Ginger Man. [Novel]. (Repr.).

The New York Times Book Review called The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B, J. P. Donleavy's hilarious, bittersweet tale of a lost young man's existential odyssey, "a triumphant piece of writing, achieved with that total authority, total mastery which shows that a fine writer is fully extended...." In the years before and after World War II, Balthazar B is the world's last shy, elegant young man. Born to riches in Paris and raised by his governess, Balthazar is shipped off to a British boarding school, where he meets the noble but naughty Beefy. The duo matriculate to Trinity College, Dublin, where Balthazar reads zoology and Beefy prepares for holy orders, all the while sharing amorous adventures high and low, until their university careers come to an abrupt and decidedly unholy end. Written with trademark bravado and a healthy dose of sincerity, The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B is vintage Donleavy.

The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

Bill Dunn

Gainor Crist

A. K. Donoghue

Showcasing for the first time 250 of renowned author J.P. Donleavy's most intimate letters, this scrupulously edited collection throws an extraordinary light on the composition, publication and afterlife of The Ginger Man -- the genesis of a masterpiece that went on to sell 60 million copies around the world. Spanning the late 1940s to the early 1980s, the letters chronicle the author's scandalous exchanges between Gainor Crist and Arthur Kenneth Donoghue, his Trinity College friends who inspired the infamous characters Sebastian Dangerfield and Kenneth O'Keefe. As well as providing a comprehensive picture of Donleavy and those closest to him, the book provides a glimpse of the lives of Donleavy, Crist and Donoghue as they venture into the wider world and encounter some of the twentieth century's most influential people along the way. The book features letters to writers Brendan Behan and William Nicholson; actors Richard Harris and Julie Andrews, and Donleavy's publishers Seymour Lawrence and Maurice Giordias amongst others. This unique collection, enriched by images and letter facsimiles, is sure to appeal to a new generation of Donleavy fans and scholars.

James Patrick Donleavy

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