Brooklyn literary descendant of James Joyce

Found this one in my paper files.

May 31, 2002
Wallace Markfield, 75, Writer With a Humorous Sarcasm


Wallace Markfield, the author of ''To an Early Grave,'' ''Teitlebaum's Window'' and other satirical novels that earned him critical praise as a Brooklyn literary descendant of James Joyce, died last Friday at a hospital in Roslyn, N.Y. He was 75 and lived in Port Washington, N.Y. The cause was complications from a heart attack, his family said.

To an early Grave was made into a film, Bye Bye Braverman.

Mr. Markfield was a little-known contributor to literary reviews and journals when he burst onto the scene in 1964 with his first novel, ''To an Early Grave,'' about the funeral of a young writer named Leslie Braverman, ''a second-rate talent of the highest order.'' In it, a group of Braverman's friends -- literary lights even dimmer than Braverman -- pile into a Volkswagen in Greenwich Village and head to Brooklyn for the funeral. The book takes place during a single day and follows the friends through misadventures along the way, including a drunken stop at the wrong funeral.

In 1968 the book was made into a film, ''Bye Bye Braverman,'' directed by Sidney Lumet and starring George Segal and Jack Warden, with an appearance by Alan King as a babbling rabbi.

Critics compared the novel to Joyce's ''Ulysses'' and praised its juxtaposition of tragedy and comedy. In a review in The New York Times, Charles Poore lauded Mr. Markfield's ''awesome talent for bridging the style of James Joyce with selections from the effects of the Theater of the Absurd playwrights.''

In ''To an Early Grave,'' ''Teitlebaum's Window'' (1970) and ''You Could Live If They Let You'' (1974), Mr. Markfield developed a style that contrasted his lofty literary aims with references to pop culture and a sarcastic sense of humor derived from stand-up comedy. Most of his stories and novels were set in Brooklyn and the dialogue was peppered with Yiddish phrases.

Philip Roth, in ''Portnoy's Complaint,'' wrote, ''The novelist, what's his name, Markfield, has written in a story somewhere that until he was 14 he believed 'aggravation' to be a Jewish word.'' He was referring to Mr. Markfield's story ''The Country of the Crazy Horse,'' which was published in Commentary in 1958.

Mr. Markfield was born in Brooklyn and began writing while an undergraduate at Brooklyn College. He graduated in 1948 and was a film critic at New Leader magazine from 1954 to 1955. He taught creative writing at San Francisco State College (now University), Kirkland College (which has since merged with Hamilton College) in Clinton, N.Y., and Queens College.

He was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 1965 after the publication of ''To an Early Grave.''

Mr. Markfield also wrote ''Multiple Orgasms,'' a short-story collection published in 1977; and ''Radical Surgery,'' a novel, in 1991. At the time of his death he had been working on a novel for 11 years, said his wife, Anna.

Besides his wife, he is survived by his daughter, Andrea Black, of Hudson, Mass., and three grandchildren.