Robert Plunket is finally getting his due. My Search for Warren Harding, his first novel, published in 1983, was reissued in June by New Directions, prompting a round of praise for the author from all corners: the New York Times (“stealthily influential”), The Paris Review (“one of the best, and most invigorating books I’d read in years”), and The New Yorker (“one of America’s funniest, gayest writers”).
So where has Plunket been this whole time? After a sojourn in the downtown New York theater scene as a young man, the now-78-year-old Plunket moved to Florida in the 1980s, where, until about a year ago, he wrote the “Mr. Chatterbox” gossip column for Sarasota magazine. He’s had a wide-ranging career, reporting on the gilt and drama of the Gulf Coast, acting off-off-Broadway, appearing in Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, publishing novels, and joining the White House press corps in Florida on 9/11. And now he’s retired. “I want my fans to know that I have found peace and contentment at a lovely trailer park in Florida,” he says.
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