donald harington 1935 – 2009

though donald harington should be a household name, instead he was called “America’s Greatest Unknown Novelist.” he was a bawdy, hilarious, immediately accessible, and erudite writer who wore his intelligence very lightly. yet he wrote sprawling, delightfully self-conscious novels whose structural experimentation arose naturally, very organically and — almost as if on a whim — expanded our idea of what the novel could do. he almost always wrote about a fictional town in the ozarks, so was trapped in a regionalist ghetto, but his books if given the chance absolutely transcended that unfortunate label.

nytimes obit | guardian obit | washington post obitharington’s website

“Donald Harington isn’t an unknown writer,” novelist and critic Fred Chappell once wrote. “He’s an undiscovered continent.”

try any of his books, but so far, i’ve loved his WITH a whole lot… get it from toby press or from your local library.

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