Tito Perdue

Tito Perdue (born 16 August 1938) is an American novelist. His works include his 1991 debut Lee.

Personal life Early life and education Perdue was born Albert Perdue to American parents in Chile, where his father worked as an electrical engineer for the Braden Copper Company. He graduated from Indian Springs School in 1956.

Perdue received a BA in English literature from the University of Texas, and an MA in modern European history and an MLS from Indiana University.

Career He then worked as an assistant professor and librarian at universities including Iowa State University and SUNY Binghamton. During this time, he contributed under his birth name to scholarly journals of history and library science.

In 1983, he retired to his mother's family's Alabama property to write full time. He wrote The Sweet-Scented Manuscript first; though this would be his fourth novel published.

Family Judy Perdue worked as a librarian and professor of biology at Floyd College and elsewhere. She is fellow of the Royal Entomological Society (London) and member of other learned associations.

The Perdues have one daughter.

Views As of 2001, Perdue was a member of the League of the South (since renamed), an American organization which the ADL and SPLC have characterized as "Neo-Confederate" and "white supremacist."

Work Perdue's novels are picaresques, built of "disjointed episodes." He explains: "I don't believe that prose should be translucent. I don't believe that plot is all that matters. I believe that language matters greatly. ... My books have very little plot. I don't even like plot." or, in later novels, science fiction (like the "escrubilator," an indescribable "omni-competent" machine).

The Pefley sequence Many of Perdue's novels chronicle the life of Leland "Lee" Pefley, In narrative order, these are:

Title Lee's age in novel Publication date The Smut Book 11 2020 Morning Crafts 13 2012 The Sweet-Scented Manuscript at university 2004 The New Austerities 42 1994 Journey to a Location 70 2021 Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Shall Come 70 2018 Materials for All Future Historians 71 2019 Lee 72 1991 Fields of Asphodel in the afterlife 2007

An aged Pefley also features prominently in the first half of Reuben. The lives of Lee's forebears are chronicled in Opportunities in Alabama Agriculture and the four-volume William's House, for which Perdue drew on records of his own family history. For Knipfel, Perdue is "without question, one of the most important contemporary Southern writers we have" and "among the most important American writers of the early 21st century."

Critics have commented on Perdue's "idiosyncratic" prose. and Dick Roraback of the Los Angeles Times complains of Perdue's eccentric (mis)usages in The New Austerities.

Thomas Fleming calls the Pefley sequence "some of the best satire on contemporary America"; and Kirkus Reviews notes the "marvelous black comedy" in Lee. Antoine Wilson of the Los Angeles Times finds "tone-deaf caricature" in some satirical passages of Fields of Asphodel, but praises its "utterly charming and brilliantly comic" denouement.

Scholarly reception Lee is discussed in Bill Kauffman's analysis of secessionist literary fiction in Bye Bye, Miss American Empire (2010). In Imagining Alternative Worlds (2025), Bernhard Forchtner and Christoffer Kølvraa discuss Perdue's fiction as exemplary of the "nostalgic imaginary." Enrico Schlickeisen (2023) and Sof Sabbioni (2025) have discussed Perdue in the context of "far-right" politics.

His academic writing (as Albert Perdue) continues to be cited.

Recognition On March 7, 2015, Perdue received the first H. P. Lovecraft Prize for Literature. The trophy was a porcelain bust of Lovecraft by Charles Krafft.

Publications

Novels Lee, Four Walls Eight Windows, 1991 ; 2nd ed., Overlook Press, 2007 ; 3rd ed., Arktos, 2019 . The New Austerities, Peachtree Press, 1994 ; 2nd ed., Standard American, 2023 . Opportunities in Alabama Agriculture, Baskerville Press, 1994 ; 2nd ed., Standard American, 2023 . The Sweet-Scented Manuscript, Baskerville Press, 2004 ; 2nd ed., Arktos, 2019 . Fields of Asphodel, Overlook Press, 2007 ; 2nd ed., Standard American, 2023 . The Node, Nine-Banded Books, 2011 . Morning Crafts, Arktos, 2013 . Reuben, Washington Summit, 2014 ; 2nd ed., Standard American, 2022 . The Builder: William's House I, Arktos, 2015 . The Churl: William's House II, Arktos, 2015 . The Engineer: William's House III, Arktos, 2016 . The Bachelor: William's House IV, Arktos, 2016 . Cynosura, Counter-Currents, 2016 . The Philatelist, Counter-Currents, 2017 . Philip, Arktos, 2017 . The Bent Pyramid, Arktos, 2018 . Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Shall Come, Counter-Currents, 2018 . The Gizmo, Counter-Currents, 2019 . The Smut Book, Counter-Currents, 2020 . Love Song of the Australopiths, Standard American, 2020 . Materials for All Future Historians, Standard American, 2020 . Journey to a Location, Arktos, 2021 . Vade Mecum, Standard American, 2021 .

Short Fiction "Good Things in Tiny Places," Counter-Currents (12 March 2015).

Nonfiction Review of Alex Kurtagić, Mister, in Counter-Currents (16 September 2013). "Decadence," Counter-Currents (19 March 2014).

Contributions to volumes Preface to Derek Turner, Sea Changes (Whitefish, MT: Washington Summit, 2012). Foreword to Greg Johnson, In Defense of Prejudice (San Fancisco: Counter-Currents, 2017). Preface to Jean Raspail, The Camp of the Saints (Petoskey, MI: Social Contract Press, 2018).

Academic writing (as Albert Perdue) "Hertzberg's Napoleonana," Books at Iowa, no. 10 (April 1969), pp. 3–10. "Conflicts in Collection Development," Library Acquisitions: Practice and Theory, vol. 2, no. 2, (1978), pp. 123–6. Review of Eliyahu Ashtor, The Medieval Near East: Social and Economic History, in Journal of Asian History, vol. 13, no. 2 (1979), pp. 191–2. Review of Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Le Pélerinage à la Mekke: Étude d'Histoire Religieuse, in The Reprint Bulletin Book Reviews, vol. xxiv, no. 1 (1979), p. 5. Review of Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid-Marsot, Society and the Sexes in Medieval Islam, in Journal of Asian History, vol. 14, no. 2 (1980), pp. 149–50. Review of Eliyahu Ashtor, A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages, in The American Historical Review, vol. 85, no. 2 (April 1980), p. 439.