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David R. Slavitt

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Author

The Resume

    (March 23, 1935- )
    Born in White Plains, New York
    Author of more than 100 books
    Best known work is 'The Exhibitionist (1967)'
    Other works include 'Suits for the Dead,' 'Alice at 80,' 'The Carnivore,' 'Blue State Blues,' 'Short Stories Are Not Real Life,' 'Lives of the Saints,' 'Vital Signs: New and Selected Poems,' and 'The Fables of Avianus'
    Writer and film critic for Newsweek (1958-65)

Why he might be annoying:

    His middle name is Rytman.
    He has published his novels under three different pseudonyms (David Benjamin, Lynn Meyer, and Henry Lazarus).
    When Jane Fonda was asked for her opinion on whether 'The Exhibitionist' was based on her, she answered bluntly: 'I don't read trash.'
    To advertise for his book 'The Voyeur,' he hired a model to dance in front of its Times Square billboard. He was fined for 'operating a circus without a license.'
    He lost a bid for a House seat in Massachusetts and then wrote a book about it.

Why he might not be annoying:

    'The Exhibitionist' was a bestseller and sold over four million copies.
    He was educated at Phillips Academy and he went on to earn an Master's from Columbia.
    When he left Newsweek in 1965, he moved to Cape Cod, and worked as a bartender to supplement his writing.
    His mother was murdered in 1978 by a teenaged burglar, who was later convicted and imprisoned.
    His catalogue is wide-ranging, consisting of everything from biographies to pulp fiction novels to translations of Greek and Latin epic poems.
    Pulitzer Prize winner Henry S. Taylor said of him: 'David Slavitt is among the most accomplished living practitioners [of writing] in both prose and verse; his poems give us a pleasurable, beautiful way of meditating on a bad time. We can't ask much more of literature, and usually we get far less.'

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 10 Votes: 40.0% Annoying