25:3 Winter 1973

GILBERT SORRENTINO

Catechism

Like Ronald Sukenick and Alain Arias-Misson, Gilbert Sorrentino is known for his experiments with literary form. A poet and novelist, Sorrentino was also editor of Neon (a Beat-related journal) in the late 1950s. When he published “Catechism” in the Autumn 1973 issue of Chicago Review, he had recently published Splendide-Hôtel with New Directions. “Catechism” would later become part of one of his best-known works, Mulligan Stew (1979), a pastiche of literary modes, stories, and characters.

[DN, 1996]

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