first edition Hardcover
1983 · New York
by Everett, Percival L.
New York: The Viking Press. Near Fine in Very Good+ dj. 1983. First Edition. Hardcover. [good solid copy, very light wear and slight bumping at spine ends, slight fading to top edge of boards; jacket lightly soiled, minor wrinkling to rear panel, short tear at bottom front foldover with associated diagonal crease across bottom of front panel]. The author's first novel, about a black first baseman (for the Seattle Mariners) and jazz lover, who heads for the woods to try and keep from going crazy. In the four decades following this work, Everett turned out more than two dozen more books (primarily novels, but also a number of volumes of poetry and short stories), yet remained resolutely under the radar, perhaps because most of his work was issued by small presses (in particular Graywolf Press, which has published the majority of his work since 1996). Since 2020, however, a couple of his novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and his most recent ("James," 2024) won the National Book Award for Fiction -- and, as any author knows, there's nothing that will quite raise your public profile (for good or ill) as having a movie made from one of your books. In Everett's case the book was his 2001 novel "Erasure," which was adapted for the generally well-reviewed 2023 film AMERICAN FICTION. . (Inventory #: 15356)