1986 Archives - Page 3 of 3 - The Vintage Contemporaries Bibliography

Richard Ford – The Sportswriter (1986)

Bibliographical Description

86.03.W019: Ford – The Sportswriter

A Vintage Original, March 1986

Second printing, April 1986; third printing, May 1986; fourth printing August 1986.

192 leaves, pp. [6] 1–3 4-23 24 25-47 48 49-73 74 75-112 113 114-141 142 143-164 165 166-179 180 181-202 203 204-238 239 240-297 298 299-311 312 313-346 347 348-365 366 367-375 [3]

Contents: π1a blurbs and author photo, π1b “ALSO BY RICHARD FORD”, π2a title, π2b imprint, π3a dedication, π3b blank, 1 fly-title, 2 blank, 3-375 The Sportswriter, 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 Kristina Ford.

Copies: JDP 1.1 (presumed), JDP 1.4

Blurbs, First Edition, First Printing

(front cover) A book full of life, and a grand achievement. – Frederick Exley
The sportswriter is Frank Bascombe, aged 38, who lives alone in a large Tudor house in suburban New Jersey and goes out into the world with his hopes ascendant (as a way of avoiding terrible, searing regret). In this particular Easter week, he is swept into an elation and a bereavement that neither he nor the reader will ever forget. “It is one thing to write sports,” he says, “but another thing entirely to live a life.”
“The sport of this remarkable novel,” as Frederick Exley explains in his advance comment, “is the one all of us play—win or lose at—every day. Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter is funny and affecting in the powerful way that moves your heart.” – Frederick Exley
“Richard Ford is a masterful writer,” writes Raymond Carver, and with The Sportswriter Mr. Ford has written a masterful novel that fulfills utterly Walter Clemons’ prediction that “here is a career that could turn out to be extraordinary – Raymond Carver, Newsweek
Richard Ford’s sportswriter is a bird rare in life and nearly extinct in fiction—a decent man. – Tobias Wolff

The Sportswriter, fourth printing, cover

Blurbs, First Edition, Fourth Printing

(front cover) This is a stunning novel. – Walker Percy
A book of life, full of life, and a grand achievement. The sport of this remarkable novel is the one all of us play—and win or lose at—every day. – Frederick Exley
A compelling novel about a survivor, shellshocked by life, who just happens to be a sportswriter the way Willy Loman just happened to be a salesman….Ford is writing about modern uncommitted man, lashing himself to the railing of mundane daily life, trying to get through the storm. – George Vecsey, The New York Times
With its small gallery of sharply drawn characters, its deep vision of the way we live, its forceful and often soaring, sometimes downright moving way of speech, and its reverberating, redemptive plot, Ford’s novel overcomes an excess of virtues. It transcends them, and becomes much more than an ordinary success….Ford does this with a deftness and intensity that we find in few books by writers of our generation. – Alan Cheuse, The Los Angeles Herald Examiner
An appreciation of the mystery of things as they are. – Time
One of the finest writers of his generation…he writes the very best that is within him. – Norman Maclean
His finest book to date, a book that can stand alongside such works as Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer and Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road. – Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

Harold Brodkey – First Love & Other Sorrows (1986)

Bibliographic Description

86.03.W018: Brodkey – First Love and Other Sorrows

First Vintage Books Edition, March 1986

112 leaves, pp. 3–12 13-31 32–34 35-84 85–86 87-114 115–116 117-156 157–158 159-166 167–168 169-177 178–180 181-192 193–194 195-207 208–210 211-223 [3] [The first page with pagination marked on it is page 13; however, the table of contents indicates that the first story, “State of Grace”, begins on page 11. The page numbers listed on the table of contents point to the section title for each story, pages that are unnumbered with a blank unnumbered page on the verso before the story proper begins. Thus, we should expect 10 pages / 5 leaves to precede this page 11, when there are in fact only 8 pages / 4 leaves. There are 2 pages missing from the expected 10 at some point in the sequence; to preserve an unbroken pagination sequence, I have treated pages “1” and “2” as missing]

Contents: 3 blurbs and author photo, 4 blank, 5 title, 6 imprint, 7 dedication, 8 blank, 9 contents, 10 blank, 11-223 First Love and Other Sorrows: 11-31 “THE STATE | OF GRACE”, 32 blank, 33-84 “FIRST LOVE | AND OTHER | SORROWS”, 85-114 “THE QUARREL”, 115-156 “SENTIMENTAL | EDUCATION”, 157-166 “LAURIE DRESSING”, 167-177 “LAURA”, 178 blank, 179-192 “TRIO FOR THREE | GENTLE VOICES”, 193-207 “PIPING DOWN | THE VALLEYS WILD”, 208 blank, 209-223 “THE DARK | WOMAN OF | THE SONNETS”; 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 Jerry Bauer.

Copies: JDP 1.2

Blurbs

(front cover) For some years now, Harold Brodkey has been making one of the great brave journeys of American literature. – Don DeLillo
Since 1958, when this book of stories was first published, Harold Brodkey has been at work on a long novel known as Party of Animals. In 1985, in Vanity Fair, the critic Denis Donoghue wrote, “The published fragments of his otherwise incomplete novel have convinced me that it’s a work of genius.” As The New Republic recently commented, “It is fair to say that for many years now Brodkey’s considerable presence on the literary landscape has been the product of his considerable absence….But his literature matters a great deal, for literature it certainly is. / For those who have read excerpts from Brodkey’s work-in-progress in The New Yorker and Esquire, and for those who are new to his fiction, the reissue of First Love and Other Sorrows (long out of print) makes available “an unusually gifted writer with an attractive freshness of perception, a fine command of language, and an individual vein of humor,” as The Atlantic’s review stated over twenty-five years ago. Here, then, is the world of the educated upper middle class, at leisure and in love.
A volume marked with quiet immediacy. Some of the stories, indeed, almost have the effect of murmured confidences, highly personal yet carefully contrived. – The Chicago Tribune
A clever, eager, perceptive series of sketches underlining the various manners of youthful American love….Brodkey writes with an engaging sympathy which one has no wish at all to resist. – The New Statesman

James Crumley – The Wrong Case (1986)

Bibliographical Description

86.01.W017: Crumley – The Wrong Case

First Vintage Books Edition, January 1986

144 leaves, pp. [10] 1–2, 3-272 [6]

Contents: π1a blurbs and author photo, π1b “ALSO AVAILABLE IN VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES”, π2a half-title, π2b blank, π3a title, π3b imprint, π4a dedication, π4b blank, π5a epigraph, π5b blank, 1 fly-title, 2 blank, 3-272 The Wrong Case, χ1a blank, χ1b about the author, χ2a blank, χ2b blank, χ3a blank, χ3b blank.

Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Rick Lovell; interior author photo by Lee Nye.

Copies: JDP 1.1 (presumed)

Blurbs

(front cover) An exceptionally good example of the private-eye novel. Crumley writes about damaged people seen through a haze of jaded romanticism. – Newsweek
Milo once had a thriving divorce-case business in the small town of Meriweather, in the Pacific Northwest, but because of liberal new divorce laws has taken to drinking and staring out the window. He’s up to his third drink of the morning when an attractive young woman walks into his office and asks him to find her brother. He takes on what seems a routine missing-person case in hopes of getting to know her better, but finds himself involved in what is most definitely The Wrong Case. Everyone is a victim, one way or another, of a crime that took place long before the novel begins.
An excellent example of new variations within an old genre. Crumley’s story is a strong one, and the revelations continue until the last page. – Texas Monthly
A very good study in fatalism and self-destruction. – Hartford Courant
Crumley is a vivid writer. He makes Milo much more vulnerable, more involved in this sordid case than Hammett or Chandler would have done. It is this kind of style that imprints itself on the reader’s memory. – Newsweek