Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kaufman – A Wild Literary Debut at Age 90 (McSweeney’s, 2007)

Description

Millard Kaufman (1917–2009) was the kind of man who lived a few lives before writing his first novel at 90. A decorated World War II Marine, he served in Guadalcanal and Okinawa before turning to Hollywood, where he co-created Mr. Magoo and earned two Academy Award nominations for screenwriting. His credits include the hard-hitting Bad Day at Black Rock and the World’s Fair-winning Raintree County. A fierce defender of artistic freedom (he once fronted for a blacklisted writer during the Red Scare), Kaufman taught screenwriting at Johns Hopkins and Sundance, and penned the influential book Plots and Characters. Late in life, with nothing left to prove, he pivoted to fiction—and delivered a literary firecracker.

Bowl of Cherries is Kaufman’s only novel, and it’s a riot. A teenage genius expelled from Yale collides with anarchic academia, a sexed-up love affair, a Middle Eastern jail, and a porn studio beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s part farce, part philosophical romp—delivered in a voice that’s equal parts Nabokov and Looney Tunes. Written with the manic joy of someone who doesn’t give a damn about literary trends, it’s gleeful, bawdy, and weirdly tender. McSweeney’s took a risk publishing a nonagenarian debut, and it paid off: Bowl of Cherries is a pure original, unburdened by genre and uninterested in playing it safe.

A fever-dream debut from a 90-year-old legend who knew how to tell a story—and how to blow one up.