My Vita, If You Will

This gathering of short fiction and essays, edited by Tom Marksbury, traces the artistic resume of Ed McClanahan, a masterful Southern stylist working under the influence of Mark Twain, Flannery O'Connor, and Eudora Welty.

Highlighting the collection is "Grateful Dead I Have Known", a long prize-winning meditation -- never before published in this form -- about Jerry Garcia and the fanatical devotion of his fans. In this extended essay verite, McClanahan re-creates the psychedelic mind of the sixties with sharp wit and good humor. Also collected here for the first time are McClanahan's earliest short stories, along with book reviews, lost chapters of The Natural Man, and a substantial afterword to Famous People I Have Known.

McClanahan is that rare breed, an accidental insider who has repeatedly found himself within fame's inner circle. His recollections of famous friends and fellow travelers form an integral part of this book. He joins his buddy Ken Kesey in a bus-journey reunion with other gray-haired Merry Pranksters, and he pokes fun at his own graduate-school flamboyance in a touching remembrance of his mentor Wallace Stegner. In comments about these pieces and their development, the author reveals much about his own journey as a writer.

Whether reflecting on the lives of departed friends, the excesses and exuberance of youth, or the once-radical urgency of a generation now aging, McClanahan writes with warmth and hard-earned wisdom.