Brian (Lester) Glanville Biography

(1972) There has, I suppose, been some tendency to categorize my work under three headings; that which deals with Italy (Along the Arno, A Cry of Crickets, A Roman Marriage), that which deals with Jewish life (The Bankrupts, Diamond), and that which deals with professional football (The Rise of Gerry Logan and many of the short stories). I think I might accept the categorization of the two Jewish novels, but it scarcely places The Olympian, which uses an athlete as its figure, athletics as its theme, or rather as its metaphor; or A Second Home, which is narrated in the first person by a Jewish actress—and has been bracketed with A Roman Marriage, itself narrated by a young girl. Again, one can, and does, use similar material for widely different purposes.

A large disenchantment with the conventional novel and its possibilities has, I think, led one gradually away from it, to more experimental methods. Like many novelists of serious intentions, one lives uneasily from one novel to the elusive next, always questioning and trying to establish the validity of the form.

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