Breaking News: James Purdy Dies at 94

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Per an announcement on the New York Times Arts Beat blog, James Purdy — a man who Dorothy Parker once called “a writer of the highest rank in originality, insight and power” has died:

“James Purdy, whose dark, often savagely comic fiction evoked a psychic American landscape of deluded innocence, sexual obsession, violence and isolation, died on Friday morning at Englewood Hospital in New Jersey. He was 94 and, after a period of declining health, had recently broken his hip, said his close friend and assistant, John Uecker.”