Robert Coates -- "The Hour After Westerly" etc.

[Extollager]

Has anyone here read Robert Coates's "The Hour After Westerly"? Sure you have, if you have read Ray Bradbury's anthology Times Stories for Today and Tomorrow, where it is the lead story. Perhaps Bradbury would have liked to have been the author.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeless_Stories_for_Today_and_Tomorrow

What did you think of it, and have you read anything else by Coates? I don't think I have; but there's a whole book-worth of short pieces by him...

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/robert-coates/the-hour-after-westerly/

I think "leasing" must mean "teasing" in the Kirkus review linked above.

 

[Randy M.]

Hi, Extollager.

Coates' Wisteria Cottage has been languishing in Mount TBR for many years, a candidate for the "From Way, Way Back..." thread. I can't recall why I picked it up, but it may have been because of Malcolm Cowley's discussion of him in And I Worked at the Writer's Trade-- (I think; I read a couple of Cowley's books on writers and writing). As I recall Cowley thought that early on Coates had the potential to be the best writer of his generation but somehow that potential dissipated. His greatest success, Wisteria Cottage, didn't lead to further novels and stories that connected with the reading public.

That looks like a great anthology. I'm especially intrigued by the story by Sidney Carroll, the father of Jonathan Carroll (if Wikipedia says it's so, it must be). I wonder if there's a family resemblance in the writing?

Randy M.

 

[Extollager]

Really interesting about Cowley on Coates, etc.

If you like Cowley a lot, would you be interested in starting a discussion on him at the Literary Fiction forum?

 

[Randy M.]

Really interesting about Cowley on Coates, etc.

If you like Cowley a lot, would you be interested in starting a discussion on him at the Literary Fiction forum?

I like him but haven't read him in years. My first, and main, introduction to him was a book of letters between him and Faulkner, as I recall when he was trying to get The Portable Faulkner published. He was an amazing champion of writers and must have had the patience of Job to deal with some of them. Maybe after October I'll revisit Cowley and see about starting a discussion.

Randy M.

 

[Extollager]

I get him confused with Malcolm Lowry, author of Under the Volcano (which I haven't read). But it's Cowley whom I want to learn about right now.