MSS 320 - Fredrick Barton Collection of Literary Manuscripts: Inventory

FREDRICK BARTON COLLECTION OF LITERARY MANUSCRIPTS

(Mss 320)

Earl K. Long Library

University of New Orleans

September 2004

 

Summary

 

Size:                          2 linear feet

Geographic

Locations:                New Orleans, Louisiana

Inclusive dates:      1989-2002

Summary:                Typescripts of four novels by Fredrick Barton

Source:                     Gift, 2004

Citation:                    Fredrick Barton Collection of Literary Manuscripts, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans

 

Biographical Note

 

Fredrick Barton is an award winning fiction writer and critic.  He holds a B.A. from Valparaiso University and did graduate work under a Danforth Fellowship, taking degrees from UCLA and the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa.  Formerly Dean of Liberal Arts and Professor of English at the University of New Orleans, where he taught fiction writing and film criticism, he is currently Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost.

A winner of the Louisiana Division of the Arts Literature Prize, Mr. Barton is author of four novels, The El Cholo Feeling Passes, Courting Pandemonium, With Extreme Prejudice, and A House Divided, which was awarded the William Faulkner Prize in fiction.  His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and in the anthologies Something in Common and Above Ground.

Saturday Review said of The El Cholo Feeling Passes, “It’s been called a kind of Fear of Flying for men but is more like a Big Chill without the posing and contrivance. In fact, it’s not like anything except itself: it feels right, it rings true.”  The Los Angeles Times, wrote, “Page by page it’s a winner, a great, wide, youthful swoop at reality that compares to visions of James Jones, Joseph Heller, Philip Roth.  The El Cholo Feeling Passes is big and very beautiful.”

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution hailed Mr. Barton’s comic second novel, Courting Pandemonium, for its “stunning ending,” and USA Today praised the whole as “a farce of the highest order.”  U.P.I. exclaimed, “Fredrick Barton should net fame and fortune with this irreverent and witty slam dunk novel.”  And Library Journal said, “Barton demonstrates once again his skill at depicting our crazy world.”

Robert Olen Butler called With Extreme Prejudice “rich and compelling,” while Pat Conroy praised it as “first rate and brilliantly written.”  Shirley Ann Grau said the “novel captures New Orleans like a Billie Holiday blues song.  It has passion and beauty and a haunting sense of irrevocable loss.”  Richard Ford described the book as “a smart novel of city life any city and as such is extremely savvy and thoughtful about America at large.”  Publisher’s Weekly said, “this is a book that supplies pleasure on a number of levels,” while according to Book Page, “With Extreme Prejudice deserves your attention because of its stunning intelligence,” and the New York Daily News praised the book as “terrific in every sense.”  The Cleveland Plain Dealer said, “It’s a wonderful book,” and the Los Angeles Times recommended the novel as “a superior, savvy tangle of greed, graft and sudden violence with a pervasive subtext of the struggle between unconscious bias and better instincts.”

Richard Ford compared A House Divided to All the King’s Men and praised its “uncommon intelligence, compassion and insight.”  Robert Olen Butler called A House Divided “an important book” and hailed it for illuminating the “present condition of the American soul.”  Elizabeth Cox remarked that Mr. Barton’s fourth novel “is visually beautiful, a work of imagination and story-telling that is long overdue.”  Carol Dawson hailed the book for its “power and authority” and its “tight, lyrical prose.”

In addition to his acclaim as a fiction writer, Mr. Barton has achieved success in other media as well.  His jazz opera Ash Wednesday with composer Jay Weigel was the keynote presentation of the Words and Music Festival in 1998.  His short film, Early Warning, played film festivals in 2001.  His film commentary appears weekly on WYES-TV.  And his “Balcony Seats” film column in the newsweekly Gambit has won the Press Club of New Orleans’ annual criticism prize on eleven occasions.  Mr. Barton has also won the Alex Waller Memorial Award, New Orleans Press Club’s highest award for print journalism, and the Stephen T. Victory Award, the Louisiana Bar Journal’s annual prize for feature writing.

 

List of Novels by Fredrick Barton

 

Courting Pandemonium.  Atlanta, Ga.: Peachtree Publishers, 1986.

The El Cholo Feeling Passes.  Atlanta, Ga.: Peachtree Publishers, 1985.

A House Divided.  New Orleans: University of New Orleans Press, 2003.

With Extreme Prejudice.  New York: Villard, 1993.

 

Container List

 

            “Arcing Toward the Light” (published as The El Cholo Feeling Passes)

 

320-1 – 320-4           Draft, [n.d.]

 

 

            “Black and White on the Rocks” (published as With Extreme Prejudice)

 

320-5 – 320-7           Draft, December 1989

 

320-8 – 320-10         Draft, October 1991

 

320-11 – 320-13       Draft, December 1992

 

 

            “Courting Pandemonium”

 

1. – 320-17        [n.d.]

 

 

“A House Divided”

 

320-18                        Draft, [n.d.]

 

320-19                        Draft, April 2000

 

320-20                        November 2002

 

Index Terms

American literature

Authors—Louisiana—New Orleans

Barton, Fredrick

Fiction—Louisiana—New Orleans