A Fan's Notes

Hunter S. Thompson touted "A Fan's Notes" as a great work in letters to a few friends collected in "Fear & Loathing in America" so I ordered it. Exley recounts his worship of the NY Giants in the early sixties and his brief encounters with Frank Gifford as a student at USC. Gifford becomes his hero as running back for the Giants as Exley loses his grip as a H.S. teacher becoming severely alcoholic and depressed. Languishing at his mother's house in Watertown, NY he is sent to an upstate NY psychiatric hospital which is recounted in painstaking detail. His travails upon release finds him drifting through jobs, frequenting many bars, falling for a young girl in Chicago which he breaks off for "playing the field" and after living off old school buddies inevitably ends up back with Mom, followed by another Psych Ward stint. He is a great story teller and master of the lexicon but I found his schizophrenia, irrational behavior and bizarre life to be very disturbing yet fascinating as one might find a series of train wrecks. Those familiar with NYC, Westchester,upstate NY and Chicago will appreciate the backdrop Exley provides.

You know how they say the books that really speak to you, you don't choose them: they choose you?Fred Exley's "A Fan's Notes" is a good example of that.One day, rooting around in the bookstore, I came across Jonathan Yardley's effusive  Misfit: The Strange Life of Frederick Exley , and thought, "Exley? Who dat?" Odd, I thought, that there would be an author deserving of such expansive praise, yet of whom I had never heard. I thought I knew everything!So I went over to the E's and, quickly ascertaining that Exley's reputation rested on this one book (there were two dud sequels), bought it.What can I say? By this point I've read it -- I think -- 19 times. It helped me do a lot of growing up, and got me through a pretty rough time.And the lessons it contains! That you can spend your entire life an alcoholic wastrel flopped on the couch, yet if you can pull it all together and put your heart on the page you can get into the Modern Library. That fame is a disease. That putting on a tie and giving things the ol' college try can be in many ways a sickness. That redemption is possible and that suffering and humiliation can lead to wisdom.The kind of reaction I've had to Exley's book is a reaction I've only had for two or three books in my life. And it's strange: I've never drunk, I deplore football, and I've never been in a mental institution; yet when I read "A Fan's Notes" it's like my future self writing back to me from a wiser, sadder time, warning me about the vanity of earthly achievements and the ambiguity of the good life.The back cover features a quote to the effect that this is the best American novel since "A Great Gatsby." Heck, it blows that one out of the water. I for one have never seen Exley's powers of characterization matched anywhere: Mr. Blue, his father, Bumpy, the Counselor, etc. Outstrips even Dickens, in my judgment.This man could write like an angel. After "Moby Dick" and "The Brothers Karamazov," easily my favorite book.

My father read “A Fan’s Notes” in the 70s. I bought it in 2016, upon his mentioning it. After one false start, I finally got around to finishing it in 2021. While there are occasional moments of cringing, for the most part the book holds up as a tale of loss and perseverance. While I would not call it laugh out loud funny, it paints vivid portraits of daily humiliations, but in a way that celebrates the downtrodden as much as mocks them, as Exley clearly sees himself as a member of the miserables he describes. With an eye for detail—indeed, sometimes too much detail; some parts drag—Exley introduces the reader myriad characters, some proper, some pathetic, all interesting.One thing that distracts you from the stories are the author’s word choices. It reads like he wrote the book with the help of a thesaurus from 1890. I have no problem learning news words, but Exley’s vocabulary is quite literally archaic—nearly half the words I looked up had (archaic) before the definition. I don’t know if some of these words were still used in the fifties and sixties, but I suspect not by many. Given the purpose of writing is communication, to fill modern prose with antiquated vocabulary is just indulgent writing. Orwell said “never use a long word where a short word will do.” Exley uses “pulchritudinous.” I prefer “beautiful.”

The writing is stunning and the themes transported me far beyond what I thought was a wide world. I am grateful to have found it and was mesmerized by reading it.

There's a lot of pain in life, and there are more failures than successes sometimes, it seems. There's lots of mental illness and lots of false tonics like alcohol and idolatry of sports heroes. Life's an illusion when you're a kid then it comes down like a ton of bricks. All seen through a smoky glass, one can feel the pain. Not everyone's bag when reading literature but when you want sorrow and failure and regret and truth and mistakes and hard experience and maybe a touch of mental illness, and you are an American male or seek to understand them, this is a key whistle stop.

The Book Depository provided excellent service in processing the order and delivering the book.I first read "A Fans Notes" in 1970 and, in my opinion , it is the greatest novel ever written in the English language. The prose is peerless and the story compelling. A study of the human condition that Steinbeck and Nabakov would have been proud to have produced.

Bought this book based on reviews and a glowing endorsement from Nick Hornby. A good editor should have cleaned this book up. Its full of so much meandering waffle that despite a good start it eventually became tiresome to read.

Got recommended this and I'm really glad I was. Tough read at times but well worth the effort. Sometimes sport does seem all-important but really it's life that matters. Got a lot of +ve vibes from it despite the tough themes. Give it a go.

A fan's notes is funny and painful in equal measure. The narrator is a drunken sports fan who has a hard life - it does not sound funny, but it is.Read it if you like Catcher in the Rye and that type of angst fueled opus.

Worth a read