• For Your Consideration:
• From 1996: A SIGNED* First Edition, First Printing in HARDCOVER:
• “OUR LADY OF BABYLON: A NOVEL”
(Arcade Publishing, 1996) (Hardcover, First Edition, First Printing)
• BY JOHN RECHY
• “The most arresting young writer I’ve read in a very long time. His tone rings absolutely true, is absolutely his own…. He tells the truth, and tells it with such passion that we are forced to share in the life he conveys.”
—JAMES BALDWIN
• “One of the few original American writers of the last century.”
—GORE VIDAL
• “RECHY shows great comic and tragic talent. He is a truly gifted novelist.”
—CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD
• “One of the few major American writers whose life is almost as interesting, and meaningful, as his work.”
—MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM
•
• For other details about this book, please see below.
•
TITLE: “OUR LADY OF BABYLOND: A Novel”
AUTHOR: JOHN RECHY
TYPE: HARDCOVER
PUBLISHER, LOCALE, & YEAR: Arcade Publishing (New York), 1996
EDITION: First Edition, First Printing*
*RE: On the Copyright Page, the statement “FIRST EDITION”—& this Number Row: “10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1.”
NOTE: This copy is NEITHER ex-library NOR a Book-of-the Month-Club edition.
PAGES: 353
ISBN: 1-55970-335-0
CONDITION OF DUST JACKET: VERY GOOD PLUS.
Price ($21.95) is unclipped. DJ is bright & clean—with light scratching & smudging (from normal handling). Corners & spine tips are bumped. Edges have light but persistent wear.
CONDITION OF BOOK: VERY GOOD PLUS.
Book is square & firm. Cover-boards are bright & clean with just light toning along the top edges. Top & bottom corners of front are lightly bumped; other corners are sharp. Spine is tight & uncreased—with lightly bumped tips. Text-block edges are bright & clean. As are endpapers. The pages are all bright & clean—with no writing (save for the author’s), no underlining, no highlighting, no foxing, no staining, no tears/rips, no foul odor, etc.
SHIPPING NEWS: This book will be wrapped with respect & care before being shipped in a protected & sturdy box. THANK YOU!
• ABOUT THIS TITLE:
• “An eighteenth-century lady haunted by dreams of infamous fallen women and their lovers realizes that these women’s lives bear a remarkable resemblance to her own and is told by a mystic that her dreams are memories of past lives and that she must face the public to vindicate all women falsely accused of crimes.”
—THE PUBLISHER
• “Surprisingly fresh, creating an ominous sense of tragedy and doom.”
—PAULA FRIEDMAN, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
• “RECHY’s latest novel was five years in the making, and it’s obviously a labor of love…this novel is a funny, sexy, stylistically elegant, tongue-in-cheek rewriting of history, framed by a deadly serious look at erotic history and a formidable exploration of the power of words and their interpretation to alter our existence.”
—GREG BURKMAN, BOOKLIST
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR’S “CITY OF NIGHT”:
• “When John RECHY’s first novel, CITY OF NIGHT, appeared in 1963, there had never been anything quite like it…. Its urgent, syntax-scrambled style [was] a wonderful shock to the reading eye, like that of HUBERT SELBY’s LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN and WILLIAM BURROUGHS’s NAKED LUNCH. CITY OF NIGHT was distinctly a Beat novel, rangy and full of bold riffs as a CHARLIE PARKER album. RECHY displayed a throwaway brilliance.”
—GARY INDIANA, LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW
• “A stunning piece of writing.”
—DAVID BOWIE
• “A ground-breaking book…observing a whole new array of characters…many for the first time in American literature…. A classic American novel.”
—EDMUND WHITE, THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
• “Probably no novel published in this decade is so complete, so well held together, and so important as CITY OF NIGHT.”
—LARRY McMURTRY
• “One of the major books to be published since World War II.”
—WASHINGTON POST
• “CITY OF NIGHT is one of the most remarkable novels to appear in years…. It illuminates, it stirs the heart, it is unforgettable.”
—HERBERT GOLD
• “This is one of the best first novels in recent years.”
—FRANK O’HARA, KULCHUR
• “CITY OF NIGHT is a remarkable book…. MR. RECHY writes in an authentic jive-like slang: the nightmare existence is explored with a clarity not often clouded by sentimentality and self-pity. The book therefore has the unmistakable ring of candor and truth.”
—PETER BUITENHUIS, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
• “An American classic, with its loner hero, its juke joints and neon signs, its restless shifting from city to city…a hybrid of ON THE ROAD and CATCHER IN THE RYE.”
—INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY (LONDON)
• “The novel has not aged a bit…. We understand better its exceptional authenticity, its premonitory vision, its subtle literary innovations. The characters…have the tragic complexity of VAUTRIN, CHARLUS, or MOREL, and the aggressive solitude of the marginal people of JEAN GENET…. Its poetry is not ostentatious nor imposed…. The protagonists are individuals of flesh and blood.”
—HUGO MARSAN, LE MONDE (FRANCE)
• “RECHY is more than a good reporter, for he has touched his materials with the imagination and the craft of a writer.”
—GRANVILLE HICKS, THE SATURDAY REVIEW OF LITERATURE
• “It is the honesty about his narcissism, his depression, and his sexual promiscuity that lifts RECHY’s writing to art. Like so many books, CITY got attention because of the sex, but it’s really about the soul.”
—DANIEL CURZON, LOS ANGELES TIMES
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Thanks for trusting
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