1987 Archives - The Vintage Contemporaries Bibliography

Thomas McGuane – To Skin a Cat (1987)

Bibliographical Description

87.11.W042: McGuane – To Skin a Cat: Stories

112 leaves, pp. [8] 1–2 3-21 22–24 25-36 37–38 39-55 56–58 59-64 65–66 67-76 77–78 79-84 85–86 87-94 95–96 97-103 104–106 107-117 118–120 121-135 136–138 139-151 152–154 155-160 161–162 163-212 [4]

First Vintage Contemporaries Edition, November 1987

Contents: π1a author photo with blurbs, π1b blank, π2a half-title, π2b ‘BOOKS BY THOMAS MCGUANE’, π3a title, π3b imprint, π4a table of contents, π4b blank, 1-21 ‘[in three dimensional letters] THE | [rule 112 mm] | MILLIONAIRE’, 22 blank, 23-36 ‘[in three dimensional letters] A MAN | [rule 96 mm] IN | [rule 96 mm] | LOUISIANA’, 37-55 ‘[in three dimensional letters] LIKE | [rule 53 mm] | A | [rule 53 mm] | LEAF’, 56 blank, 57-64 ‘[in three dimensional letters] DOGS | [rule 58 mm]’, 65-76 ‘[in three dimensional letters] A | [rule 83 mm] SKIRMISH’, 77-84 ‘[in three dimensional letters] TWO | [rule 70 mm] | HOURS | [rule 70 mm] TO KILL’, 85-94 ‘[in three dimensional letters] THE | [rule 65 mm] | RESCUE’, 95-103 ‘[in three dimensional letters] SPORTSMEN | [rule 99 mm]’, 104 blank, 105-117 ‘[in three dimensional letters] LITTLE | [rule 73.5 mm] | EXTRAS’, 118 blank, 119-135 ‘[in three dimensional letters] PARTNERS | [rule 82 mm]’, 136 blank, 137-151 ‘[in three dimensional letters] THE | [rule 58 mm] | ROAD | [rule 58 mm] ATLAS’, 152 blank, 153-160 ‘[in three dimensional letters] FLIGHT | [rule 66 mm]’, 161-212 ‘[in three dimensional letters] TO SKIN | [rule 72 mm] | A CAT’; χ1a about the author, χ1b blank, χ2a Vintage Contemporaries order form, χ2b Vintage Contemporaries list.

Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Rick Lovell; interior author photo by Tom Corcoran.

Copies: JDP 1.1

Blurbs

(front cover) A cornucopia of McGuane’s grace, humor, gusto and smarts. – Philadelphia Inquirer
In his first short story collection Thomas McGuane displays the same electric language and generous vision that distinguish his six widely acclaimed novels. Thirteen stories of great range, humor, and verve show that his large talent is equally suited to the tersest of prose forms.
The finest stories in this volume…have the sad-funny, sad-surreal texture of daily life; and their depth of emotion not only attests to the happy continuation of developments glimpsed in Mr. McGuane’s last two novels, but also hints at even better things to come. – Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
It’s time we recognized Thomas McGuane as a national resource. To Skin a Cat is a generous first story collection from one of our sharpest, funniest and most wide-ranging talents. – Boston Herald
Thomas McGuane has produced some of America’s most precise, vivid and amusing prose…[he] can set a scene with astonishing ironic clarity, and he juxtaposes the romance and the reality of our times with incomparable wit. – San Francisco Sunday Examiner-Chronicle

Michael Downing – A Narrow Time (1987)

Bibliographical Description

87.11.W041: Downing – A Narrow Time

120 leaves, pp. [10] 1–2 3-227 [3]

A Vintage Contemporaries Original, November 1987, First Edition

Contents: π1a author photo with excerpt, π1b blank, π2a half-title, π2b blank, π3a title, π3b imprint, π4a dedication, π4b blank, π5a epigraph, π5b blank, 1 fly-title, 2 blank, 3-227 A Narrow Time: 3 ‘[between two vertical rules 44.5 mm] AN | ARTICLE | OF | FAITH’, 4-16 ‘[between two vertical rules 23 mm] DOCUMENTATION’, 17-34 ‘[between two vertical rules 23 mm] UNVEILINGS’, 35-41 ‘[between two vertical rules 44 mm] THE | FACE OF | GOD’, 42-57 ‘[between two vertical rules 33.5 mm] HALF-SEEN | OR LOST?’, 58-79 ‘[between two vertical rules 44 mm] THE | BLINDED | PUBLIC EYE’, 80-115 ‘[between two vertical rules 23 mm] INVOCATIONS’, 116-155 ‘[between two vertical rules 44 mm] WHOSE | CHILD | IS THIS?’, 156-218 ‘[between two vertical rules 44 mm] FEAR | OF | INNOCENCE’, 219-226 ‘[between two vertical rules 23 mm] DOCUMENTATION’, 227 ‘[between two vertical rules 55 mm] AN | AMENDED | ARTICLE OF | FAITH’; 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 Peter Bryant.

Copies: JDP 1.1

Blurbs

(front cover) A novel of great power and wisdom. Michael Downing knows about the undertow of family life—the secrets, lies, and nostalgia for things that never were. – Susanna Kaysen
Anne Fosicker describes herself as “one of those people who have no sense of direction,” who follow prescribed routes even to the supermarket and the bank. But the disappearance of her youngest child precipitates an internal and often painful search, a drama as intriguing as the abduction of her daughter. A Narrow Time marks the debut of a resourceful, sophisticated storyteller with an extraordinary ability to explore the passions and evasions of his characters.
A fine novel in every regard: a moving story told in a distinct voice about characters we can really care about. – James Carroll, author of Mortal Friends
A tour de force! Michael Downing is a he? I never thought he was anything but female, so convincing is his fictional voice. How well he gets into the mind of the narrator in this remarkably well-written book on a very current subject. An astounding accomplishment. – Susan Kenney, author of In Another Country

Emily Prager – A Visit from the Footbinder (1987)

Bibliographical Description

87.10.W040: Prager – A Visit from the Footbinder and Other Stories

96 leaves, pp. [10] 13-43 44 45-190 [4]

Pagination note: Although the first numbered page is “13”, there are only 10 pages (5 leaves) preceding it

First Vintage Contemporaries Edition, October 1987

Contents: π1a author photo with blurbs, π1b blank, π2a title, π2b imprint, π3a acknowledgments, π3b blank, π4a table of contents, π4b blank, π5a epigraph, π5b blank, 13-190 A Visit from the Footbinder: 13-43 ‘[rule 97 mm] | A Visit from the Footbinder | [rule 97 mm]’, 44 blank, 45-90 ‘[rule 97 mm] | The Alumnae Bulletin | [rule 97 mm]’, 91-102 ‘[rule 97 mm] | Agoraphobia | [rule 97 mm]’, 103-180 ‘[rule 97 mm] | The Lincoln-Pruitt | Anti-Rape Device: | Memoirs of the | Women’s Combat Army in Vietnam | [rule 97 mm]’, 181-190 ‘[rule 97 mm] | Wrinkled Linen | [rule 97 mm]’; χ1a about the author, χ1b blank, χ2a Vintage Contemporaries order form, χ2b Vintage Contemporaries list.

Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Frank Morris; interior author photo by Ralph DePas.

Copies: JDP 1.1

Blurbs

(front cover) Splendid and original. – The New York Times
Emily Prager’s first book of stories, a collection of wicked fantasies and audacious realities, now back in print, leaves no room for casual encounters.
Prager is a writer of surrealistic vision and biting wit. Quirky and fearless…laced with great gusts of wit and humor. – San Francisco Chronicle
Suavely heartless in the manner of the early Evelyn Waugh…funny, frightening…a macabre treat. – Harper’s
Emily Prager’s A Visit from the Footbinder is the funniest, most brash and impressive first book of fiction in recent memory….She is sardonic, yes. Ruthlessly witty and provocative, without a doubt. But she is a gifted storyteller with unerring instincts and a demoniacally clever imagination, one who has only begun to explore the broad range of her gifts. – Chicago Tribune Book World

Emily Prager – Clea & Zeus Divorce (1987)

Bibliographical Description

87.10.W039: Prager – Clea & Zeus Divorce

136 leaves, pp. [10] 1–2 3-259 [3]

A Vintage Contemporaries Original, October 1987, First Edition

Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Frank Morris; interior author photo by Ralph DePas.

Copies: JDP 1.1

Blurbs

(front cover) Prager is a writer of surrealistic vision and biting wit. Quirky and fearless…laced with great gusts of wit and humor. – San Francisco Chronicle
She addressed the audience. “Duck and cover,” she said. “We’re getting a divorce.” The audience gasped. “No, it’s fine, really,” she reassured them. “It’ll probably be like Scenes from a Marriage: ten years from now we’ll be married to other people but we’ll be meeting secretly in a motel. Don’t worry.” – [Excerpt]
It happened because of an infidelity….the question is whether it was his or hers. You never really know. / After ten years of marriage and acclaim, the great Clea and Zeus are divorcing—and since all their life together has been turned into art, so will they dramatize their divorce. In their last TV special, they enact their glittering history and stage their final breakup. It is a brilliant performance that hauntingly mimics the strange life duet of this famous pair: the monstrous crime that chases Zeus deeper and deeper into laudanum dreams, the terrible trail that leads Clea to a leper colony in the South Pacific, their bizarre entourage of Seven Golden Lieutenants, a Red Chinese poet and a Xhosa witch doctoress, and, overall, Clea’s mad obsession that their show will be preempted by an atomic blast.

Steve Erickson – Rubicon Beach (1987)

Bibliographical Description

87.09.W038: Erickson – Rubicon Beach

152 leaves, pp. 1–8 9-90 91–92 93-224 225–226 227-300 [4]

First Vintage Contemporaries Edition, September 1987

Contents: 1 author photo with blurbs, 2 ‘B_OOKS _BY S_TEVE E_RICKSON’, 3 title, 4 imprint, 5 epigraph, 6 blank, 7-300 Rubicon Beach: 7-90 ‘ONE [over decorative panel 107 x 102 mm]’, 91-224 ‘TWO [over decorative panel 107 x 102 mm]’, 225-300 ‘THREE [over decorative panel 107 x 102 mm]’; χ1a about the author, χ1b blank, χ2a Vintage Contemporaries order form, χ2b Vintage Contemporaries list.

Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Rick Lovell; interior author photo by Alison Cobb.

Copies: JDP 1.1

Blurbs

(front cover) This book is…a warning to those who lack the courage to cross the Rubicon of their imaginations. – Paul Auster, The New York Times Book Review
Erickson’s stuff is exquisite: echoing like poetry….He has an absolute vision, which moves fearlessly through time and across geographic boundaries, of what it means to be born in America….Rubicon Beach is a diamond. – Philadelphia Inquirer
Stark, brilliant…a world marked by familiar coordinates but always in fantastic light, as if seen for the very first time. Somewhere in Rubicon Beach, in Los Angeles, in America…are our unadulterated dreams—if we could only stop looking long enough to find them. – San Francisco Chronicle
The best novel I’ve read this year. – Greil Marcus, Village Voice
Steve Erickson has that rare and luminous gift for reporting back the nocturnal side of reality. – Thomas Pynchon
Here, in Rubicon Beach, is a musical prose of utter clarity that can weld the abstract and the concrete, the daily an the surreal, into a seamless whole. Here is a mind that can both conceive visions and follow them over the edge. Here, I mean, is a writer—a man whose words reach for you where you live and whose meanings look back at you from your mirror whether you like it or not. – Michael Ventura, L.A. Weekly
Genuine stylishness…a nightmare novel. – USA Today