The Kick

Rating:
Summary: Rick Murphy's The Kick
Review: Rick Murphy's autobiography, The Kick, is a singular document by a singular man. Many memoirs written at the late end of a long life contain images, stories and ideas polished and embossed long after the event or experience. As such the border between fiction and autobiography, wilfully or otherwise, becomes blurred and idiosyncratic. For Murphy, this is not necessarily the case, since his book is a selection from a daily diary kept since youth. While the act or acts of selection inevitably imply some exclusion, the mass of information itself demands the writer's editorial eye to make a book accessible to an informed reading public. Murphy's book is a monument to the life a twentieth century poet must live. The exigencies of poetic production plus a diminished audience, denies the easy flow of income other writerly forms can generate. One line of good advertising copy makes greater wealth than a bouquet of sonnets. The result for Murphy and vicariously his readers, is a journey through tangential labours such as running a lugger and fishing for a living. In between, there's contact with a variety of now famous fellow writers, generating in turn some astute and personal commentary on their lives. This includes a newly revealed truth about Sylvia Plath, too juicy to repeat in this review. Murphy is no gossip, news is news no matter where you read it. A brave man, he unpacks his own sexual identity, revealing in some water colour moments, profound emotional experiences in his life. Read The Kick. It takes literary autobiography on a new route.

David Basckin

Rating:
Summary: Rick Murphy's The Kick
Review: Rick Murphy's autobiography, The Kick, is a singular document by a singular man. Many memoirs written at the late end of a long life contain images, stories and ideas polished and embossed long after the event or experience. As such the border between fiction and autobiography, wilfully or otherwise, becomes blurred and idiosyncratic. For Murphy, this is not necessarily the case, since his book is a selection from a daily diary kept since youth. While the act or acts of selection inevitably imply some exclusion, the mass of information itself demands the writer's editorial eye to make a book accessible to an informed reading public. Murphy's book is a monument to the life a twentieth century poet must live. The exigencies of poetic production plus a diminished audience, denies the easy flow of income other writerly forms can generate. One line of good advertising copy makes greater wealth than a bouquet of sonnets. The result for Murphy and vicariously his readers, is a journey through tangential labours such as running a lugger and fishing for a living. In between, there's contact with a variety of now famous fellow writers, generating in turn some astute and personal commentary on their lives. This includes a newly revealed truth about Sylvia Plath, too juicy to repeat in this review. Murphy is no gossip, news is news no matter where you read it. A brave man, he unpacks his own sexual identity, revealing in some water colour moments, profound emotional experiences in his life. Read The Kick. It takes literary autobiography on a new route.

David Basckin