Partner John T. Marsh
Queer Places:
Columbia University (Ivy League), 116th St and Broadway, New York, NY 10027
Burton M. Blechman (March 2, 1927 - December 29, 1998) was an American author. His first
novel, "How Much" was adapted by
Lillian Hellman for Broadway, and praised by Alfred Kazan as "a book that
comes off with painful power ...inimitable." Critically acclaimed by
W.H. Auden, Anita Loos, and
Susan Sontag, he subsequently wrote
four novels, "The War Of Camp Omongo," "Maybe," "Stations," and "The Octopus
Papers." "Turn Off The Television Awhile," wrote Saul Bellow, "and for the
sake of your souls, read Burt Blechman."
Burton M. Blechman was born in Brooklyn, NY. He attended University of Vermont (BA, 1949)
and Columbia University (MS) and was a teacher at the New York University Medical School.
A generous contributor to The Yivo
Institute for Jewish Research and the Pearl Theatre, he was a brilliant
conversationalist and wit. The New York Review of Books wrote of "The War Of
Camp Omongo": "As extra-literary social pressures have slackened, the gain in
artistic range and depth has been unquestionable. The American-Jewish novelist
has been emancipated; Bernard Malamud’s generation finally struck off the
fetters of uncompromising naturalism, and younger men like Mr. Blechman and
Mr. Simckes take their freedom for granted." To this the same Burt Blechman
answered, in a letter to the Editors: "Crucify me if I ever write another book
about Jews. Frankly, I have had it. Your reviewer’s grouping me with the OY
GEVALTers was the final stroke. To date, I have written two novels with a
Jewish background. Reviewers who favor them invariably use the expression
“About a family who just happen to be Jewish.” Well, they didn’t just happen.
They weren’t born that way, they didn’t choose to be that way. I made them
that way. And I promise never to do it again. Reviewers take note. Henceforth,
you will have to place Blechman in a different category. No more “a young
Jewish novelist” or “among our newer and more jaded Jewish writers.” I know it
will be hard, this refusal to wear the shoe that fits, to sleep in the bed my
parents made. But I’m weary of that literary and oh-so-handy Star of David.
I’m off to another category. If you think I can’t stick daggers into
Protestants, just try me. If you think I’m afraid of the Index, wait and see.
Call it a betrayal of trust, call it heresy, but I’m tired of being typed. So
farewell Bar-Mitzvah. It’s been great needling you. Farewell, bankrupt garment
manufacturer, I don’t want it wholesale. Goodbye, stout-hearted Mamala,
Tantala and old Granny Stern. I’m off to new lands. Maybe Christian
Scientists, Seventh Day Adventists, a novel about the Stations of the Cross.
The main thing is to shake those critics off my trail, make them lose the
scent, backtrack, confuse them. What I mean to say is—no more OY’s for me."
Burt Blechman passed away at age 71 on December 29, 1998 in Providence,
Rhode Island of pancreatic cancer. He was survived by his 46-year life-partner
John T. Marsh.
My published books:
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