Rudolph Wurlitzer is a writer best known for his work in cinema, although he attracted attention from reviewers and critics at the end of the 1960s with two boldly unconventional novels. His most impressive work has appeared subsequently and has been largely neglected, possibly because of his reputation following from those uncompromising early novels. In his fiction and in that work for film that is most distinctly his own, his persistent concern has been with space and its promise of freedom. He writes of dreams of individual liberation and the inevitability of disillusionment. In this respect he is archetypally an American writer, committed to exploring extreme conditions and the margins of culture.

Wurlitzer was born in Cincinnati, a member of the famous musical family. In the following year his parents, Rembert and Anna Lee Little Wurlitzer, moved to New York City, where he attended grade school before pursuing...