Title: A Neglected Classic
Product review: Jack Dunphy's literary career was overshadowed in his lifetime by his 30-year relationship with the celebrated writer Truman Capote. And yet a single reading of the extraordinary "John Fury" reveals Dunphy to have been Capote's artistic equal, though a totally different kind of writer. "John Fury," about the Irish poor in Philadelphia at the turn of the century, belongs with such realist or naturalist urban classics as Frank Norris's "McTeague," Stephen Crane's "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets," and Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle." Dunphy's prose is hard, sharp, and spare, as befits the story's theme---the grinding, soul-deadening effects of a family's poverty. It is not a happy story, but it is a vividly real one.Dunphy is a writer whose works, including the touching "Nightmovers" and "First Wine," as well as the brilliant novel-memoir "Dear Genius," deserve to be back in print. But "John Fury," his first book, may well be his best.
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