1987 Archives - Page 3 of 3 - The Vintage Contemporaries Bibliography

Theodore Weesner – The Car Thief (1987)

Bibliographical Description

87.03.W032: Weesner – The Car Thief

192 leaves, pp. [6] 1–3 4-52 53–55 56-149 150–153 154-228 229–231 232-282 283–285 286-370 [8]

First Vintage Contemporaries Edition, March 1987

Original publication: Random House 1972

Contents: π1a author photo with blurbs, π1b ‘Also By Theodore Weesner’, π2a title, π2b imprint, π3a dedication, π3b blank, 1-370: The Car Thief : 1-52 ‘Book One | [decorative rule 57 mm] | The Arrest’, 53-149 ‘Book Two | [decorative rule 57 mm] | Detention’, 150 blank, 151-228 ‘Book Three | [decorative rule 63 mm] | The Beating’, 229- ‘Book Four | [decorative rule 63 mm] | Withdrawal’, 283-370 ‘Book Five | [decorative rule 73 mm] | Summer Death’; χ1a about the author, χ1b blank, χ2a Vintage Contemporaries order form, χ2b Vintage Contemporaries list, χ3a blank, χ3b blank, χ4a blank, χ4b blank.

Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Rick Lovell; interior author photo by Hilary Masters.

Copies: JDP 1.1

Blurbs

(front cover) So poignant and beautifully written, so true and painful, that one can’t read it without feeling the knife’s cruel blade in the heart. – Boston Globe
“The car’s heater was issuing a stale and odorous warmth, but Alex remained chilled. He had walked several blocks through snow and slush, wearing neither hat nor gloves nor boots, to where he had left the car the night before. The steering wheel was icy in his hands, and he felt icy within, throughout his veins and bones. Alex was sixteen; the Buick was his fourteenth car.” / Alex Housman and his father live alone in a city much like Detroit. Alex is a kid who hides his many hurts, who seems to fade into his environment while raging inside; his father is an alcoholic who is losing his grip on life even as he wants the best for his son. The Car Thief explores the love Alex and his father share, in a tremendously poignant story that is filled with unusual triumphs.
A remarkable, gripping first novel….Incredibly sympathetic and revealing in its portrayal of a kind of life, and a kind of human personality, that are totally foreign to most of us. – Joyce Carol Oates, Chicago Tribune
A story so precise and so movingly inevitable that before I knew what was happening to me, I felt I was in the grip of some kind of thriller….The climactic episode is one of the most profoundly powerful in American fiction. – Joseph McElroy, The New York Times Book Review

Robert Olmstead – River Dogs (1987)

Bibliographical Description

87.03.W031: Olmstead – River Dogs

River Dogs | STORIES | ROBERT OLMSTEAD | Vintage Contemporaries | VINTAGE BOOKS • A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE • NEW YORK

128 leaves, pp. [10] 1–2 3-13 14 15-21 22 23-35 36 37-45 46 47-59 60 61-71 72 73-109 110 111-240 [6]

A Vintage Contemporaries Original, March 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 contents, π5b blank, 1 fly-title, 2 blank, 3-240 River Dogs: 3-13 ‘River Dogs’, 14 blank, 15-21 ‘A Good Cow’, 22 blank, 23-35 ‘A Place to Stay’, 36 blank , 37-45 ‘What To Do First’, 46 blank, 47-59 ‘Cody’s Story’, 60 blank, 61-71 ‘Onions’, 72 blank, 73-109 ‘The Mason’, 110 blank, 111-122 ‘A Pair of Bulls’, 123-171 ‘Bruno and Rachel’, 172 blank, 173-188 ‘The Boon’, 189-232 ‘In This Life’, 233-240 ‘How to Bury a Dog’; χ1a about the author, χ1b blank, χ2a Vintage Contemporaries order form, χ2b Vintage Contemporaries list, χ3a blank, χ3b blank.

Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Rick Lovell; interior author photo by David Tobin.

Copies: JDP 1.1

Blurbs

(front cover) An original…Olmstead writes like a man who won’t speak til he’s got something to say. – Jay McInerney
In River Dogs and eleven other stories, Robert Olmstead transports readers into the raw, uncompromising, often bitterly funny landscape of rural New Hampshire. With relentless power and an ever-sensitive eye and ear for eerily realistic detail, Olmstead spins tales of country living proud and fallow. Wily dairymen, onion planters, small-time hunters, and drifting hustlers populate River Dogs—characters deflecting pain and rich in humanity.
Robert Olmstead is a nation unto himself, or at least a province in revolt; an original in the American grain, shrewd, funny, interested in convention only for what he can get out of it….From the world of his work—muscular, male, generally unremunerative work—he has fashioned a fresh and vital language. – Tobias Wolff
Hilarious, sad, gritty, true-to-life and original. – Howard Frank Mosher
A stunning debut…these are terrific stories by a terrific writer. – Ernest Hebert
In reading Olmstead, we may hear the echo of ancient tales traded in the flicker of firelight…the gnarly wisdom of generations of New Englanders finds expression in these remarkable stories. – Jay McInerney

Pete Davies – The Last Election (1987)

Bibliographical Description

87.01.W030: Davies – The Last Election

128 leaves, pp. [10] 1 2 3-52 53 54-73 74 75-104 105 106-188 189 190-209 210 211-233 234 [12]

First Vintage Books Edition, January 1987

Contents: π1a author photo with blurbs, π1b blank, π2a title, π2b imprint, π3a dedication, π3b blank, π4a epigraph, π4b blank, π5a fly-title, π5b blank, 1-234 The Last Election: 1-2 ‘PROLOGUE’, 3-53 ‘FRIDAY’, 54-74 ‘MONDAY’, 75-105 ‘TUESDAY’, 106-189 ‘WEDNESDAY’, 190-210 ‘THURSDAY’, 211-234 ‘GOOD TELEVISION’; χ1a about the author, χ1b blank, χ2a Vintage Contemporaries order form, χ2b Vintage Contemporaries list, χ3a blank, χ3b blank, χ4a blank, χ4b blank, χ5a blank, χ5b blank, χ6a blank, χ6b blank.

Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Rick Lovell; interior author photo by Jerry Bauer.

Copies: JDP 1.1

Blurbs

(front cover) If Brazil were based on a novel, it might well have been The Last Election. – Terry Gilliam
At the time of the last election, who rules England? Nanny does. For what party? The Money Party. Who are “the jobless”? The general public. And what keeps them happy, more or less? A stultifying mix of pop music, pool tournaments and broadcasts by Wally Wasted—prepared by executives who live in precarious high-tech luxury, fueled by booze and cocaine. / Grief is one of them. He invented the government-subsidized Dance Barns, and still runs the biggest—a palce of sex and rock intended to keep the young happy and harmless. His lover, Milla, is an advertising phenom on the brink of collapse. Both Grief and Milla loathe the government, but both are compromised by their success on its behalf…until they discover the ultimate purpose of the latest street drug. As the aged are severely taxing the government’s ability to provide for them financially, this drug hurries things along, so to speak… / The Last Election gives to the distinguished tradition of such “political” novels as 1984 and A Clockwork Orange a compassionate, human face, and possesses as well the imaginative futurism of such films as Brazil and Blade Runner. Already acclaimed in Great Britain, Pete Davies has made a stunning debut.
Vivid, nasty, brutish, and paranoic…a prophecy of the urban apocalypse. – The Times (London)
A fast, inventive and funny thriller which holds us to the last. – The Observer