I’m sad to hear that Robert Coover has died. Coover was a profound artist, much of whose writing I’ve read and thoroughly not only enjoyed but found utterly marvelous. Today, as I have often done, I’m thinking about how his fiction has inspired me, made me think and rethink and laugh and wonder, thinking about the times I saw him read from his work, about our chats and conversations at Brown University and elsewhere. I’m sad, yes, to hear about his passing, but I’m also both grateful for and awed by his incredibly inspiring life and legacy.
Back in 2021, we published a folio dedicated to Coover, commemorating his 89th birthday, yes, but also casting a critical lens on, primarily, some of his late works. It includes an excerpt from Open House, of what would be Coover’s final novel; a collection of Coover’s thoughts on writing, reading, and more; and the following five pieces on his works:
- “The Illiterate, the Maimed,” by Louis Armand
- Robert Coover: An Appreciation, by Elisabeth Ly Bell
- Robert Coover and Fairy Tales, by Brian Evenson
- On the Trail of Robert Coover’s Noir: A Novel, by Geoffrey Green
- The Alluring Obscurity of Noir: A Lesson Before Writing, by Ted Morrissey
- He Can’t Remember, He’s No Longer Sure, Maybe, by Lance Olsen
Thanks, Bob, for, as I’ve said many times before, your densely lyrical, thoroughly irreverent, oft-bawdy, and imaginatively outrageous engagements with history, politics, pop culture, etc.
May all artists, literary and otherwise, follow your lead and be thoroughly unruly, rebel against received thinking, transgress convention, skewer sacred cows, and reimagine, reinvent, and revolt.