Tito Perdue

Tito Perdue (born 16 August 1938) is an American novelist. His works include his 1991 debut ''Lee''.

Personal life

Perdue was born Albert Perdue to American parents in Chile, where his father worked as an electrical engineer for the Braden Copper Company. The family returned to the United States in 1941, upon the country's entering the War. Perdue was brought up in Anniston, Alabama.Library of Congress Linked Data Service, "Perdue, Tito." https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n91013525.html (accessed 12 May 2025) He graduated from Indian Springs School in 1956. He attended Antioch College for a year before he was expelled for cohabiting with a fellow student, Judy Clark. They married in 1957.
Who's Who of American Women
' (New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who, 2006), p. 1256.

Perdue received a BA in English literature from the University of Texas, and an MA in modern European history and an MLS from Indiana University. He then worked as an assistant professor and librarian at universities including Iowa State University and SUNY Binghamton.Albert Perdue, "Conflicts in Collection Development," ''Library Acquisitions: Practice and Theory'', vol. 2, no. 2, (1978), pp. 123–6.
/ref> During this time, he contributed under his birth name to scholarly journals of history and library science. In 1983, he retired to his mother's family's Alabama property to write full time. Don Noble
"Fields of Asphodel (A Novel), by Tito Perdue,"
apr.org (22 December 2008). Retrieved 9 September 2024. He wrote ''The Sweet-Scented Manuscript'' first; though this would be his fourth novel published. Alex Kurtagić
"A Reactionary Snob,"
''Alternative Right'' (3 November 2011). Retrieved 9 September 2024.

Judy Perdue worked as a librarian and professor of biology at Floyd College and elsewhere.
Who's Who in the South and Southwest
' (New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who, 1993), p. 627. She is fellow of the Royal Entomological Society (London) and member of other learned associations. Her father, Christopher Clark, wrote novels of working class life, including ''The Unleashed Will'' (1947) and ''Good Is for Angels'' (1950).

The Perdues have one daughter. They live in Centreville and Wetumpka, Alabama.Don Noble
"The Node,"
apr.org (15 August 2012). Retrieved 9 September 2024.

Work

Many of Perdue's novels chronicle the life of Leland "Lee" Pefley, an ''alter ego'' who, Perdue explains, "actually carries out actions that his creator would often wish to perform if he but had the courage." In order, these are ''The Smut Book'' (Pefley aged 11), ''Morning Crafts'' (aged 13), ''The Sweet-Scented Manuscript'' (at college), '' The New Austerities'' (aged 42), ''Journey to a Location'' and ''Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Shall Come'' (both aged 70), ''Materials for All Future Historians'' (aged 71), ''Lee'' (aged 72) and '' Fields of Asphodel'' (in the afterlife). An aged Pefley also features prominently in the first half of ''Reuben''.Mike C. Tuggle
"Starry-Eyed Varlet,"
abbevilleinstitute.org (9 May 2014). Retrieved 9 September 2024. The lives of Lee's forebears are chronicled in ''Opportunities in Alabama Agriculture'' and the four-volume ''William's House'', for which Perdue drew on records of his own family history.

Perdue's novels are picaresques, built of "disjointed episodes."''The New York Times'', 24 November 1991. He explains: "I don't believe that prose should be translucent. I don't believe that plot is all that matters. I believe that language matters greatly. ... My books have very little plot. I don't even like plot." Perdue often incorporates elements of fantasy (like active volcanoes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Alabama) or, in later novels, science fiction (like the "escrubilator," an indescribable "omni-competent" machine).

Reception

Critical reception

Perdue's novels have encountered "critical but not much popular success." Jim Knipfel and Gary Heidt have named Perdue among their favourite writers. For Knipfel, Perdue is "without question, one of the most important contemporary Southern writers we have" and "among the most important American writers of the early 21st century."Jim Knipfel
"Go South, Young Man,"
''New York Press'', vol. 16, no. 32 (2003). Retrieved 9 September 2024.

Critics have commented on Perdue's "idiosyncratic" prose. Anne Whitehouse of ''The New York Times'' finds ''Lee'' "vitriolic and hallucinatory, yet surprisingly lucid, producing a portrait both exceedingly strange and troubling." In the ''New York Press'', Knipfel praises Perdue's "fluid, consciously musical prose," "full of rage but under complete control," noting that it becomes "progressively textured and more savage" with time. However, ''Publishers Weekly'' finds that ''Lee'' "sinks under the weight of its own pretensions"; and Dick Roraback of the ''Los Angeles Times'' complains of Perdue's eccentric (mis)usages in ''The New Austerities''.

Thomas Fleming calls the Pefley sequence "some of the best satire on contemporary America"; and ''Kirkus Reviews'' notes the "marvelous black comedy" in ''Lee''. Antoine Wilson of the ''Los Angeles Times'' finds "tone-deaf caricature" in some satirical passages of ''Fields of Asphodel'', but praises its "utterly charming and brilliantly comic" ''denouement''.

Scholarly reception

''Lee'' is discussed in Bill Kauffman's analysis of secessionist literary fiction in ''Bye Bye, Miss American Empire'' (2010). In ''Imagining Alternative Worlds'' (2025), Bernhard Forchtner and Christoffer Kølvraa discuss Perdue's fiction as exemplary of the "nostalgic imaginary."

His academic writing (as Albert Perdue) continues to be cited.

Recognition

On March 7, 2015, Perdue received the first H. P. Lovecraft Prize for Literature. The trophy was a porcelain bust of Lovecraft by Charles Krafft.

Political opinions

Perdue is a member of the League of the South.

Publications

Novels

*''Lee'', Four Walls Eight Windows, 1991 (); 2nd ed., Overlook Press, 2007 (); 3rd ed., Arktos, 2019 ().
*'' The New Austerities'', Peachtree Press, 1994 (); 2nd ed., Standard American, 2023 ().
*''Opportunities in Alabama Agriculture'', Baskerville Press, 1994 (); 2nd ed., Standard American, 2023 ().
*''The Sweet-Scented Manuscript'', Baskerville Press, 2004 (); 2nd ed., Arktos, 2019 ().
* ''Fields of Asphodel'', Overlook Press, 2007 (); 2nd ed., Standard American, 2023 ().
*''The Node'', Nine-Banded Books, 2011 ().
*''Morning Crafts'', Arktos, 2013 ().
*''Reuben'', Washington Summit, 2014 (); 2nd ed., Standard American, 2022 ().
*''The Builder: William's House I'', Arktos, 2015 ().
*''The Churl: William's House II'', Arktos, 2015 ().
*''The Engineer: William's House III'', Arktos, 2016 ().
*''The Bachelor: William's House IV'', Arktos, 2016 ().
*''Cynosura'', Counter-Currents, 2016 ().
*''The Philatelist'', Counter-Currents, 2017 ().
*''Philip'', Arktos, 2017 ().
*''The Bent Pyramid'', Arktos, 2018 ().
*''Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Shall Come'', Counter-Currents, 2018 ().
*''The Gizmo'', Counter-Currents, 2019 ().
*''The Smut Book'', Counter-Currents, 2020 ().
*''Love Song of the Australopiths'', Standard American, 2020 ().
*''Materials for All Future Historians'', Standard American, 2020 ().
*''Journey to a Location'', Arktos, 2021 ().
*''Vade Mecum'', Standard American, 2021 ().

Short Fiction

"Good Things in Tiny Places," ''Counter-Currents'' (12 March 2015).

Nonfiction

Review
of Alex Kurtagić, ''Mister'', in ''Counter-Currents'' (16 September 2013).
"Decadence," ''Counter-Currents'' (19 March 2014).

Contributions to volumes

*Preface to Derek Turner, ''Sea Changes'' (Whitefish, MT: Washington Summit, 2012).
*Foreword to Greg Johnson, ''In Defense of Prejudice'' (San Fancisco: Counter-Currents, 2017).
*Preface to Jean Raspail, ''The Camp of the Saints'' (Petoskey, MI: Social Contract Press, 2018).Enrico Schlickeisen, "The Origins of Replacement Narratives and the Resemanticization of Feminism in Two Novels of the Far Right," in ''Subversive Semantics in Political and Cultural Discourse: The Production of Popular Knowledge'', ed. Gesa Mackenthun and Jörn Dosch (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2023), pp. 100–1.
/ref>

Academic writing (as Albert Perdue)

''Books at Iowa'', no. 10 (April 1969), pp. 3–10.
"Conflicts in Collection Development,"
''Library Acquisitions: Practice and Theory'', vol. 2, no. 2, (1978), pp. 123–6.
Review
of Eliyahu Ashtor, ''The Medieval Near East: Social and Economic History'', in ''Journal of Asian History'', vol. 13, no. 2 (1979), pp. 191–2.
Review
of Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes, ''Le Pélerinage à la Mekke: Étude d'Histoire Religieuse'', in ''The Reprint Bulletin Book Reviews'', vol. xxiv, no. 1 (1979), p. 5.
Review
of Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid-Marsot, ''Society and the Sexes in Medieval Islam'', in ''Journal of Asian History'', vol. 14, no. 2 (1980), pp. 149–50.
Review
of Eliyahu Ashtor, ''A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages'', in ''The American Historical Review'', vol. 85, no. 2 (April 1980), p. 439.

Notes

References

External links

Official Website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perdue, Tito
1938 births
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American novelists
American male novelists
American expatriates in Chile
Living people
Novelists from Alabama
People from Cachapoal Province
Writers of American Southern literature
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers