Frederick Exley
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Frederick Exley, a native of Watertown, New York, is best known as the author of an obscure but highly regarded book, A Fan's Notes, originally published by Harper & Row in 1968.
A Fan's Notes is a sardonic account of mental illness, alcoholism, and failure to measure up to the American dream -- as well as the black hole of sports fandom. The title page asserts that it is "a fictional memoir" and Exley included a note to the reader explaining "Though the events in this book bear similarity to those of that long malaise, my life...I have drawn freely from the imagination and adhered only loosely to the pattern of my past life. To this extent, and for this reason, I ask to be judged a writer of fantasy." This may give one a sense of Exley's sense of humor, but for all intents and purposes, the book is a confession.
The organizational strategy of A Fan's Notes involves the narrator's morbidly charting his own failures in the field of literature against the electrifying successes enjoyed by his idol and former classmate Frank Gifford on the football field. Exley also blames his lust for success in part on his father's noteriety as a Watertown football hero and leader of a semi-pro team. A Fan's Notes has been compared frequently to Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby by critics due to its central preoccupation with the American dream.
A Fan's Notes sold poorly in hardcover but was still hugely successful by literary standards. Exley soon became a celebrity among New York literati. In a sense, the success of the novel vindicated Exley by guaranteeing him the fame and recognition he so deeply sought.
Exley went on to write two other books, Pages from a Cold Island and Last Notes from Home that, together with A Fan's Notes can be taken to be an autobiographical trilogy. All of Exley's output after A Fan's Notes was received with diminishing critical attention. Pages from a Cold Island attempts to follow the same successful formula of A Fan's Notes, with Edmund Wilson standing in for Gifford. Last Notes From Home chronicles Exley's experiences tending to his dying older brother, Bill, whom he suspects may have been involved with the My Lai Massacre.
A biography of Exley, Misfit: The Strange Life of Frederick Exley, by prominent literary critic and Pulitzer Prize winner, Jonathan Yardley (who was a friend of Exley's), appeared in 1997. Yardley's central thesis is that Exley was a brilliant one-book writer. Additionally, when A Fan's Notes was published by The Modern Library, it was Yardley who wrote the preface.
Exley's papers are currently housed at the University of Rochester.
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[edit] A Chronology of Exley's Life
1926 Fred's brother William Exley born, September 18.
1929 Frederick Earl Exley born in Watertown, NY, March 28; Twin sister Frances born thirty minutes earlier.
1933 Fred's sister Constance Exley born, August 13.
1945 Charity basketball game for Fred's father Earl Exley, January 1; Earl Exley dies, August 7.
1946 In car accident, May 31; Breaks arm, unable to graduate high school in June.
1947 Graduates from high school in January, after extensive recovery; works at local railroad; awarded $14,000 in damages from accident, buys first car; mother Charlotte Exley remarries to H. Wally Richardson, June 7.
1948 Does post-graduate coursework at John Jay High, Katonah, NY; plays basketball there, named to conference all-star team; Charlotte moves to limestone house at Pamelia Four Corners, outside Watertown.
1949 Enters Hobart College.
1950 Enters University of Southern California; begins to follow football career of fellow student Frank Gifford at USC.
1951 Takes Selective Service physical examination, rejected because of arm injury.
1952 Leaves USC for New York City, without his degree, to find employment; Frank Gifford drafted by the New York Giants, also leaves USC without his degree.
1953 Returns to USC after unable to find employment in New York; graduates USC with A.B. in English; moves to New York City, works at public relations for New York Central Railroad.
1954 Transferred to NY Central Railroad's Chicago office.
1955 Joins Chicago's Rock Island Railroad as public relations representative, February; becomes managing editor of The Rocket, the railroad's employee magazine; first published writing appears in The Rocket.
1956 Loses job in Chicago, heads west in winter of 1956-1957.
1957 After a series of moves and odd jobs around the country, moves into stone house at Pamelia Four Corners with Charlotte and Wally Richardson.
1958 Admitted to Stony Lodge, a private mental institution in Westchester County, NY; meets Francena Fritz, begins courting her after his brief stay at Stony Lodge; admitted to Harlem Valley, state mental institution (prototype for "Avalon Valley" in AFN); begins writing, early stages of A Fan's Notes.
1959 Released from Harlem Valley in the fall; marries Francena, October 31; moves to Greenwich, CT; gets brief teaching position at Port Chester, NY.
1960 First daughter, Pamela Rae Exley, born April 29.
1961 Gets provisional appointment as clerk and crier of the courts in Jefferson County, NY, May; forges signature on check for friend Gordon Phillips's legal client, August 23.
1962 Disbarment proceedings for Gordon Phillips, June 11; Francena obtains a divorce from Fred at her father's request; Fred begins several years of intermittent teaching jobs in Clayton, Gouverneur, Indian River, NY; begins decade of living and vacationing on Singer Island in Riviera Beach, FL; Another stay at Harlem Valley.
1963 Continues working on A Fan's Notes seriously.
1964 Sends manuscript for A Fan's Notes to Houghton Mifflin where it is turned down but Fred is encouraged; sends manuscript to Joe Fox at Random House, who suggests an agent, Lynn Nesbit; Lynn Nesbit begins shopping manuscript around; David Segal at Harper & Row accepts manuscript, advance to Fred of $3000; Segal begins enthusiastic promotion of A Fan's Notes.
1965 Fred meets Nancy Glenn while on vacation in Palm Beach Shores, FL; gets job as bookkeeper for The Buccaneer, Nancy's husband's resort.
1966 Nancy separates from husband, moves in with Fred; Fred works at Palm Beach Post's copy desk.
1967 Nancy becomes pregnant, moves with Fred into stone house with Charlotte and Wally; Fred and Nancy marry, September 13, move to Syracuse, NY; Wally Richardson dies of a coronary occlusion, October 15.
1968 Second daughter, Alexandra Exley, born January 12; Fred and Nancy separate, Nancy becomes pregnant with another child; Fred has first version of a last will and testament drawn up; Begins working on his second novel, Pages from a Cold Island; A Fan's Notes published by Harper & Row, September; Fred and Nancy reconcile and move back to Syracuse, October.
1969 A Fan's Notes nominated for the National Book Award for Fiction; receives William Faulkner Award for best first novel of 1968; Nancy's son, Robert Brandon Exley, born April 8, with severe birth defects; Fred and Nancy separate again; Fred receives Rosenthal Award from National Institute of Arts and Letters, May 21; Rockefeller Foundation awards Fred $10,000 writing grant, June; Fred and Nancy begin divorce proceedings, September; Paperback edition of A Fan's Notes published by Ballantine Books, Inc., November.
1970 Charlotte purchases small house on Walton St. in Alexandria Bay, NY; Fred temporarily moves in, still spends much time in Florida working on Pages from a Cold Island; Charlotte's home becomes Fred's home base for next 20 years; British edition of A Fan's Notes published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.
1971 Fred's divorce to Nancy final, January 8; Robert Brandon Exley dies; Fred travels to Rome in fall?; interviews Gloria Steinem, December.
1972 Reads for the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, April; returns to Iowa City in the fall as a guest lecturer for the entire semester; movie version of A Fan's Notes released in Canada by Coquihala Films, a division of Warner Bros.; William Exley retires from army, falls ill to cancer.
1973 William Exley dies in Hawaii, February 16; Fred continues writing Pages from a Cold Island; occasionally travels the college lecture circuit; begins to develop a "Hemingwayesque" literary persona; Lynn Nesbit sends out sample chapters of Pages from a Cold Island to publishers.
1974 Robert Loomis at Random House signs Fred with an advance of $50,000; Fred receives Playboy's Editorial Award for year's best nonfiction piece, 'Saint Gloria & the Troll."
1975 Pages from a Cold Island published by Random House, April; travels to Hawaii, begins work on third and final novel of trilogy, Last Notes from Home; Vintage Contemporaries reissues A Fan's Notesin paperback, April.
1976 Travels to San Francisco on his way home to Alexandria Bay from Hawaii in the fall; meets with Jann Wenner, editor of Rolling Stone, and Paul Scanlon, managing editor; Scanlon suggests serializing excerpts of Last Notes from Home for Rolling Stone.
1977 Rolling Stone pays Fred $20,000 for up to six excerpts of Last Notes from Home, May.
1978 Fred's papers acquired by collector Robert C. Stevens, December.
1979 Kennedy Center screening of "A Fan's Notes" movie, January (or 1980?).
1981 Robert C. Stevens donates Fred's papers to the University of Rochester, December.
1982 A Fan's Notes included in Jonathan Yardley's list of top 22 books of Twentieth Century American fiction, compiled for The Washington Post.
1984 Fred receives Guggenheim Foundation grant for $21,000, March; Fred's last will and testament revised, final version, April 13; travels to London in the fall for interviews with Sarah Miles and Michael Herr.
1987 Random House receives completed manuscript of Last Notes from Home, November.
1988 Last Notes from Home published by Random House, September; Frank Gifford hosts a publication party for Fred in New York City.
1989 Fred begins work on a spy novel, to be titled Mean Greenwich Time (which was never finished); interviews Diane Sawyer in New York City for article; Charlotte Richardson dies, October 22.
1990 Vintage Contemporaries paperback edition of Last Notes from Home published, February; Fred moves in with aunt Frances Knapp on Crossman St. in Alexandria Bay; travels to London in the fall, becomes very ill while there; Alexandra Exley marries Ken Mowers, October 20, Fred unable to attend wedding; returns to Alexandria Bay, admitted to hospital, diagnosed with congestive heart failure, then released; begins caring for ailing Aunt Frances.
1991 Frances Knapp dies, December.
1992 Collapses from a stroke while alone in his Crossman St. apartment, June 9; found and taken to hospital, June 10; Frederick Earl Exley dies, June 17; ashes buried in Brookside Cemetery in Watertown, NY, next to parents; memorial service at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Clayton, NY, June 27.
1997 Jonathan Yardley's biography of Frederick Exley, Misfit, published by Random House.
1998 "Frederick Exley and Jonathan Yardley: A Novelist and His Biographer," an exhibition honoring Exley and Yardley in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Rochester, April 22, 1998 (through 1999).
[edit] His Family Now
Fredrick Exley's sister, Francis, still lives in the Watertown area where she took care of her husband, Irwin Brown, who recently passed away. Irwin was a great person, as well as his wife, who played violin and was principal at Indian River. Francis had four children, Helen, Ed, Kurt and Jay. Each had two children. Helen - Latisha and Ian, Ed - Nathan and Jason, Kurt - AnaMarie and Colton, and Jay - Corey and Chris. Although none of his great neices and nephews ever got to meet him, Francis collects Fredrick's books and won't hesitate to talk about how good a person her twin brother was. His daughter, Pam, is doing well, with two children of her own. His youngest sister, Connie, lives in the same area as Francis and occasionally rents her sister's A-Frame. Frederick Exley's daughter Alexandra lives in North Carolina. She is the mother of two children. Fred's former wife Nancy lives in Florence Italy and in the Adirondacks in the summer.
[edit] Exley's Publications
A Bibliography of Exley's Published Works
[edit] Novels
- A Fan's Notes. Harper & Row, Sep 1968.
- Pages from a Cold Island. Random House, Apr 1975.
- Last Notes from Home. Random House, Sep 1988.
[edit] Articles
- "He's a Pro." Sport Magazine, Jul 1969 (excerpt from A Fan's Notes).
- "Poem from a Man at Middle Age." Esquire, May 1973.
- "Good-bye, Edmund Wilson." The Atlantic Monthly, Mar 1974 (excerpt from Pages from a Cold Island).
- "Saint Gloria & the Troll." Playboy, Jul 1974 (excerpt from Pages from a Cold Island).
- "To Oahu with the 'Wild Geese'." Rolling Stone, 30 Jun 1977 (excerpt from Last Notes from Home).
- Letter to the editor about William Styron in Esquire, 11 Apr 1978.
- "James Seamus Finbarr O'Twoomey." Rolling Stone, 5 Oct 1978 (excerpt from Last Notes from Home).
- "Ms. Robin Glenn." Rolling Stone, 22 Feb 1979 (excerpt from Last Notes from Home).
- "A Fan's Notes Goes to Super Bowl XIII." Inside Sports, Oct 1979.
- Review of Bill Barich's Laughing in the Hills, for New York Magazine, 11 Aug 1980.
- Review of Clive James's Unreliable Memoirs, for New York Magazine, 13 Apr 1981.
- "Holding Penalties Build Men." Inside Sports, Nov 1981.
- "A Case for Backing Cincinnati--and for Ice Fishing." New York Times, 24 Jan 1982.
- "Just Who Is 'the Game' in Professional Football?" New York Times, 22 Aug 1982.
- "Football '83: Side Lines." Rolling Stone, 15 Sep 1983.
- "The Natural." GQ, Feb 1984.
- "The Laureate of Alexandria Bay." Esquire, Mar 1986.
- "Brother in Arms." Rolling Stone, 17 and 31 Jul 1986 (excerpt from Last Notes from Home).
- "A Fan's Note." American Film, Sep 1986.
- "The Giants Will Fail and Here's Why." New York Times, 30 Nov 1986.
- "A Fan's Further Notes." Esquire, Jun 1987.
- Article (title unknown, about Alexandria Bay fishermen) for Adirondack Life, ca.1989.
- "Women and Football." The Cable Guide, Nov 1989.
- "If Nixon Could Possess the Soul of this Woman, Why the Hell Can't I?" Esquire, Dec 1989.
- "Tell'em Frankie's here." The Sunday Correspondent, London, 1 Jul 1990.
- Article (title unknown, about The Lion's Head saloon) for GQ, Dec 1990.
- "Exley's Last Notes." Esquire, Aug 1993 (posthumous extract from unfinished spy novel).
