Bibliographic Description
86.08.W023: Ford – The Ultimate Good Luck
the ULTIMATE GOOD | LUCK | RICHARD | FORD | VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES | VINTAGE BOOKS | A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE | NEW YORK
First Vintage Contemporaries Edition, August 1986
104 leaves, pp. [4] 1 2-13 14 15-23 24 25-32 33 34-35 36 37-45 46 47-55 56 57 58 59-63 64 65-75 76 77-82 83 84-90 91 92-97 98 99 100 101-104 105 106-107 108 109-119 120 121-124 125 126-133 134 135-145 146 147-150 151 152-157 158 159-162 163 164-169 170 171-172 173 174-179 180 181-185 186 187-197 198 199-201 [3]
Contents: π1a blurbs and author photo, π1b “BOOKS BY RICHARD FORD”, π2a title, π2b imprint, 1-201 The Ultimate Good Luck, χ1b about the author, χ2a Vintage Contemporaries order form, χ2b Vintage Contemporaries list.
Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Chris Moore; interior author photo by Kristina Ford.
Copyright: ©1981. ISBN: 0-394-75089-6. Price: $5.95. The Ultimate Good Luck was first published by Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981.
Copies: JDP 1.1
Blurbs
- (front cover) His prose has a taut, cinematic quality that bathes his story with the same hot, flat, mercilessly white light that scorches Mexico. – The New York Times Book Review
- The Ultimate Good Luck is a portrait of Quinn, a Vietnam vet whose alienation from the past and dislocation from the future renders him incapable of emotional commitment beyond the here and now. The setting: Oaxaca, Mexico, where Quinn’s gone to get his girlfriend’s brother out of jail. Against the backdrop of a city crawling with soldiers, drug dealers, American tourists, and the “marginal ones”—the Indians, always living on the outskirts—Richard Ford weaves a masterful tale of people waiting desperately for the kind of luck that can change your life.
- So hardboiled and tough that it might have been written on the back of a trench coat. A grand Maltese Falcon of a novel. Ford seems to have invented a new form—the detective-less detective story, the bystander novel, where the only case for the bystander to crack is his heart. – Stanley Elkin
- The prose is spare and masterful in its barbed simplicity. The people, filled with wily life, rage, fear, and despairing hope, are all chillingly real. Resonant, moving, and superb. – Philadelphia Inquirer
- The Ultimate Good Luck can be read as a dramatic adventure, a revelation of character, or as a love story. At each level it is a brilliant work. – Howard Frank Mosher