A Fan's Notes author featured in exhibit

An exhibition of documents, memorabilia and photographs about writer Frederick Exley is now on display in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections of Rush Rhees Library. Sixteen display cases contain books, manuscripts, correspondence, articles and other materials relating to Exley's life as a writer. They also show his personal connections to upstate New York.

Exley is best known for A Fan's Notes, a 1968 novel that is considered one of the most significant works in 20th-century literature. The author of three books and numerous articles, Exley was a Watertown native who died in 1992. His papers are among the archives in the Department of Rare Books.

The exhibit, titled "Frederick Exley and Jonathan Yardley: A Novelist and his Biographer," showcases items ranging from Exley's Smith Corona manual typewriter and family photographs to letters from writers John Cheever, William Styron, and Larry McMurtry.

Combined with them are works by Jonathan Yardley, who researched his 1997 biography of Exley, Misfit: The Strange Life of Frederick Exley, at Rush Rhees Library.

Yardley has written several books and is the literary critic for the Washington Post.

Exhibition hours are 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday, now through November, in Rush Rhees Library.