Under the Matron were three Sisters… and it was from these beings that I directly received most of my orders. It was with the intermediate portions of my small society that my relations were most uneasy. I exuded an aroma which, although we got on so splendidly, in some way kept them off…īeyond the Ward Matron into the stratosphere of the Hospital hierarchy my vision did not extend. I noticed with interest that none of them took me seriously as a male. They were calling me ‘Jakie’ on the second day, and treating me with an affectionate teasing tyranny. With the nurses, who were mainly young Irish girls without a thought in their heads, unless obsession with matrimony may be called a thought, I immediately got on very well. I was still more than a little nervous of my colleagues and superiors and very anxious to please. And there are strong similarities in the writing style, with certain passages in Under the Net that could fit right into A Fan’s Notes - like this one, where Jake describes his short tenure as an orderly at a Catholic hospital: Each novel is a rambling series of drunken misadventures, odd jobs, dysfunctional relationships and missed opportunities.

He’s wildly ambitious but held back by his own lazy, anxious and self-critical tendencies, along with a considerable drinking habit.Īt the time, Exley was just such a character himself, and A Fan’s Notes is his autobiographical novel of these years spent not writing. Under the Net is narrated by Jake, a young writer who’s spent years bumming around London and Paris, drinking and philandering with an assortment of bohemian friends, getting by on translation work while neglecting his own writing. I haven’t read anywhere about Murdoch’s influence on Exley, but I think it may have been considerable. I recently read Under the Net (1954), Iris Murdoch’s first novel, and I was surprised by how much it reminded me of Frederick Exley’s cult favorite A Fan’s Notes, written about a decade later.

A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley