A Fan's Notes

A Fan’s Notes is one bummer of a story. But it’s also a brilliantly realized one: writer Frederick Exley’s salad days marred by bar fights, excessive drinking, money borrowing, and freeloading.

Exley was lucky to live as long as he did let alone get anything as good as A Fan’s Notes published. Vicious cycles of addiction, reclusiveness, and poor mental health inhibited any progress he made in making his literary mark. What makes this all the more sad was his severe delusions of grandeur; Exley was convinced he was destined for greatness throughout his life. But what he actually was is undeniable—a malcontent with a severe drinking problem and a narcissistic personality disorder.

No matter how much he aspired to live in grandiosity, his vices got the best of him more often than not. And it’s amazing he lived long enough to get any of this book on paper at all. For that reason I think Exley’s experiences give aspiring writers hope. 

A Fan’s Notes is a highly affecting piece of art by a one-hit wonder that almost never was; someone whose personal calamities and social ineptitude proved to be the things that provided vitality to his work. This book has likely gotten lost in the mix of memoirs written by better-known, more prolific writers, but that doesn’t mean it still shouldn’t be appreciated. It just takes a certain mood.