Purdy, Director of Publicity
In my youth, I was often attracted to books with high sea adventure: Treasure Island, Moby Dick, Old Man and the Sea, and of course Robinson Crusoe. Of these books, I found Crusoe both familiar and disturbing. In a society of one, how do you stave off madness and create a meaningful existence? In my self-imposed isolated existence—no one understood me, the real me, therefore I am alone—I wrestled with faith and belief in God, or a higher power. I questioned the moral superiority of my parents, my teachers, the U.S. government (it was the 80s). Those days are far behind me now, but I suspect I’ll be revisiting these ideas again when I host author Rebecca Chace at the Bryant Park Reading Room.* Below is an article Chace wrote for Fiction Magazine that explores other famous writers’ reactions to Robinson Crusoe.
*You can meet Rebecca Chace today, July 27, at 12:30pm in beautiful Bryant Park. The outdoor Reading Room is just off 42nd St, between 5th and 6th Avenues in New York City. There, she’ll lead a discussion (free and open to the public) on Robinson Crusoe–and all registered attendees get a free copy of the book!
Looking for Robinson Crusoe
Shipwreck:
But it wasn’t.
It was much more mundane, though no less violent.
“Lie Like the truth” –Daniel DeFoe
Why do I need to circle around and invent, when a list of facts could do just as well or better: On an evening in October, your father dies suddenly of a heart attack. Eight weeks later, you find that the reason your husband has been almost completely absent through this abrupt shock into mourning has not been because of his work. Turns out he has another life in another country and another language. A woman with her own daughter the same age as our youngest. What he doesn’t have is an income and apparently he hasn’t had one for quite a while now. Turns out he is in love.
Turns out you are not so much in love, anymore.
I will always know the exact date and approximate time of these events. Time of death is something that strangers write down. It is often not so exact in a marria