Bibliographical Description
86.06.W021: Swan – Carnival for the Gods
CARNIVAL | [snake ornament 1.4 x 1.5] FOR THE [“FOR” over “THE”] [snake ornament 1.4 x 1.5] | GODS | [diamond 0.3 x 0.4 cm] | A NOVEL BY | GLADYS SWAN | Vintage Contemporaries | Vintage Books | A Division of Random House | New York
A Vintage Original, First Edition, June 1986
120 leaves, pp. [8] 1–3 4-17 18 19-30 31 32-74 75 76-94 95 96-180 181 182-190 191 192-229 [3]
Contents: π1a blurb and author photo, π1b blank, π2a title, π2b imprint, π3a dedication, π3b blank, π4a epigraphs, π4b blank, 1 fly-title, 2 blank, 3-229 Carnival for the Gods, χ1b about the author, χ2a Vintage Contemporaries order form, χ2b Vintage Contemporaries list.
Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Rick Lovell; interior author photo by Gary Moore.
Copyright: ©1986. ISBN: 0-394-74330-X. Price: $6.95. A Carnival for the Gods was first published by Vintage Contemporaries, 1986.
Copies: JDP 1.1 (presumed)
Blurbs
- (front cover) Gladys Swan is adventuresome and writes with verve…tough, honest and original. – The Missouri Review
- “One feels and tastes her world’s weather, sees its terrain, and becomes involved with its people,” wrote The Sewanee Review of Gladys Swan’s On the Edge of the Desert, a collection of stories. These qualities—and still more—are found in this, her first novel. After long years on the road, the Carnival for the Gods has gone bust. Dusty—would-be impresario and former high-wire star—has struggled to transform this troupe into a feast for the imagination, but instead sees it broken down on a lonely New Mexico highway. Only a few haven’t deserted: the giant whose gargantuan appetites don’t begin to satisfy his need; the self-loathing midget, an encyclopedist of human freakishness; Billy, whose longing for true magic is mocked by his sleight-of-hand talents; and Dusty’s wife, Alta, a trapeze artist now bone-weary and middle-aged, tempted to leave her husband and the only life she’s ever known. / But Dusty turns up one last wild card—the Amazing Grace, a girl whose exotic dance is, he figures, his professional salvation, an act to convert tarnished sequins to gold. And once again the motley band is on the road, bound for a wide-open, unclaimed territory somewhere between the U.S. and Mexico, where, perhaps, dreams come true. / In exploring the relation of life and art, magic and illusion, Carnival for the Gods is a fable as curiously enticing as the tattoo emblazoned under Grace’s navel. But at the center of Swan’s three-ring fiction are characters engaged in the dazzling feat of keeping a vision of beauty alive against all earthly odds.