SOURCE: A review of The Bukowski/Purdy Letters, in Canadian Materials for Schools and Libraries, Volume XII, No. 6, November 1984, pp. 253-54.

In the following review, Kingstone questions the wisdom of publishing the correspondence of these two authors.

The advantage of reading a writer's letters is that one sees, often quite easily, the shape of informal thought that is frequently more revealing than the author's published work. By reading diaries and letters written to close friends, private communication, we see a writer's life focused for us in sharper detail; at least, that is the idea. But I cannot help but think that the private world disclosed for this reader in The Bukowski/Purdy Letters 1964–1974 would have been better left to the world of private correspondence. The writing is undistinguished; and, while one marvels at the spontaneity and the evolution of a friendship, the exchange of letters more often than...