David Monteil Archives - The Vintage Contemporaries Bibliography

Gloria Naylor – Mama Day (1989)

Bibliographical Description

89.04.W059: Naylor – Mama Day

168 leaves, pp. [18] 1–3 4-10 11-13 14-165 166-169 170-312 [6]

Edition statement: First Vintage Contemporaries Edition, April 1989

Contents: π1a blurbs, π1b blurbs, π2a half-title, π2b blank, π3a “Also by Gloria Naylor”, π3b blank, π4a title, π4b imprint, π5a acknowledgment, π5b blank, π6a dedication, π6b-π7a map, π7b blank, π8a fly-title, π8b blank, π9a family tree, π9b blank, 1 bill of sale, 2 blank, 3-312 Mama Day: 3-10 prologue, 11-165 part one, 166 blank, 167-312 part two; χ1a about the author, χ1b blank, χ2a Vintage Contemporaries list, χ2b Vintage Contemporaries list, continued, χ3a blank, χ3 blank.

Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by David Montiel; exterior author photo by Donna DeCesare.

Copies: 1.6

Blurbs

(front blurb) Resonates with genuine excitement…a big, strong, admirable novel. – The New York Times Book Review
This is a wonderful novel, full of spirit and sass and wisdom, and completely realized. – Washington Post
The bestselling new novel from the American Book Award-winning author of The Women of Brewster Street is set in a world that is timeless yet indelibly authentic—the Georgia sea island of Willow Springs, where people still practice herbal medicine and honor ancestors who came over as slaves. On Willow Springs lives Mama Day, a matriarch who can call up lightning storms and see secrets in her dreams. But all of Mama Day’s powers are tested by her great-niece, Cocoa, a stubbornly emancipated woman whose life and very soul are now in danger from the island’s darker forces. Mama Day is a powerful generational saga at once tender and suspenseful, overflowing with magic and common sense.
Naylor has a dazzling sense of humor, rich comic observation and that indefinable quality we call ‘heart.’ – Rita Mae Brown, Los Angeles Times
A moving tale of love, pride, power, healing and belief in the unbelievable that combines the poignancy of an old woman’s past with the urgency of a young woman’s future. – Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Frederick Exley – Pages from a Cold Island (1988)

Bibliographical Description

88.09.W053: Exley – Pages from a Cold Island

144 leaves, pp. [10] 1–2 3-274 [4]

First Vintage Contemporaries Edition, September 1988

Contents: π1a blurbs, π1b “ALSO BY FREDERICK EXLEY”, π2a title, π2b imprint, π3a dedications, π3b blank, π4a epigraphs, π4b blank, π5a note to the reader, π5b blank, 1 fly-title, 2 blank, 3-274 Pages from a Cold Island, χ1a about the author, χ1b blank, χ2a Vintage Contemporaries list, χ2b Vintage Contemporaries list, continued, with order form.

Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Dave Monteil; exterior rear author photo by Mark Jury.

Copies: JDP1.1

Blurbs

(front cover) Like A Fan’s Notes, this is a glory of a book, a heart’s needle under your skin. – Boston Globe
The second volume in Frederick Exley’s trilogy of autobiographical novels is in every way a worthy sequel to the much-acclaimed A Fan’s Notes. Pages from a Cold Island begins with the death of Edmund Wilson, a devastating event that sends Exley on an obsessive personal odyssey from Alexandria Bay on the St. Lawrence River to a resort island off the coast of Florida to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Our hero lurches from one outrageous encounter to another in a chronicle full of irrepressible energy and no-holds-barred confession.
Lunatic, funny, sad, and infuriating. A work of art. – Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
Even better than A Fan’s Notes…marvelously funny. One of the truly remarkable personal chronicles of our time. – William Styron
Exley matters because beneath the surface of a life seemingly given over to too much booze and random sex and aimlessness, there is a true writer, an artist unseduced by fad and fashion. – Jonathan Yardley, New Republic

Frederick Exley – A Fan’s Notes (1988)

Bibliographical Description

88.09.W009: Exley – A Fan’s Notes: A Fictional Memoir

200 leaves, pp. [12] 1-385 [3]

Edition statement: Vintage Contemporaries Edition, September 1988 [i.e. second Vintage Contemporaries edition]

Contents: π1a blurbs, π1b ‘_{ALSO BY} F_REDERICK E_XLEY’, π2a title, π2b imprint, π3a dedication, π3b blank, π4a ‘A Note to the Reader’, π4b blank, π5a epigraphs, π5b blank, π6a fly-title, π6b blank, 1-385 A Fan’s Notes: 1-28 ‘1 | [diagonal rule 19 mm] | The Nervous Light | of Sunday’, 29-71 ‘2 | [diagonal rule 19 mm] | Cheers for Stout | Steve Owen’, 72-118 ‘3 | [diagonal rule 19 mm] | Straw Hat for | a Madman’, 119-175 ‘4 | [diagonal rule 19 mm] | Onhava Regained | and Lost Again”, 176-226 ‘5 | [diagonal rule 19 mm] | Journey on a | Davenport’, 227-298 ‘6 | [diagonal rule 9 mm] | Who? Who? Who | Is Mr. Blue?’, 299-357 ‘7 | [diagonal rule 19 mm] | Lament for a | Conspiracy’, 358-385 ‘8 | [diagonal rule 19 mm] | A Dream of | Sanguinary Ends’; χ1b blank, χ2a about the author, χ2b Vintage Contemporaries ad with three blurbs.

Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Dave Monteil; exterior rear author photo by Mark Jury.

Copies: JDP 2.22, JDP 2.25

Blurbs

(front cover) A Fan’s Notes is strong, beautiful, American, one of a kind. – Kurt Vonnegut
The best novel written in the English language since The Great Gatsby. – Newsday
This is the horrible, hilarious account of a long failure, but a failure which turns into success: the success that this book is. A Fan’s Notes is one man’s life, written with brilliance and insight. No one should have had Exley’s life, and no one who has read it can ever forget it. – James Dickey
A singularly moving, entertaining, funny book. – The New York Times
Writers of every kind of aesthetic and cultural persuasion talk about it with one another, and press it on their friends to read….When I urge A Fan’s Notes on a friend who asks what is it about? or what is it like? I say read it, just read it. – Geoffrey Wolff, Los Angeles Times
A welcome reminder of what the basic business of literature and of living really is. All fans of art and life should read it. – Jack Kroll, Newsweek

Kathryn Kramer – A Handbook for Visitors from Outer Space (1985)

Bibliographic Description

85.05.W012: Kramer – A Handbook for Visitors From Outer Space

First Vintage Books Edition, May 1985

176 leaves, pp. [10] 1-4 5-101 102-104 105-197 198-202 203-277 278-280 281-297 298-300 301-329 330-332 333-335 336 [6] [only odd-numbered pages numbered from 5-101, 105-197, 203-277, 281-297, 301-329, 333-335]

Contents: π1a blurbs, π1b “ALSO AVAILABLE IN VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES”, π2a half-title, π2b blank, π3a title, π3b imprint, π4a epigraph, π4b blank, π5a “A Note to the Reader”, π5b blank, 1-336 A Handbook for Visitors from Outer Space: 1 section title “Part One”, 2 blank, 3-5 “The House at the World’s End | (AFTERWORD AND PREFACE)”, 6-21 “On All Fronts”, 22-45 “Seeds of Conflict”, 46-102 “Green Fields and White Rooms”, 103-149 “Apostasy | (Not to Mention Incest)”, 150-198 “Investiture”, 199 section title “Part Two”, 200 blank, 201-219 “Unconfirmed | Troop Movement”, 220-265 “Mutiny”, 266-278 “The Lines Are Drawn”, 279-298 “Flying Home”, 299-330 “The Battle Joins on the | New Jersey Turnpike”, 331-336 “Parade”; χ1a blank, χ1b blank, χ2a about the author, χ2b blank, χ3a blank, χ3b blank.

Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by David Monteil.

Copies: JDP 1.1 (presumed)

Blurbs

(front cover) A wonderful first novel that dances on the edge of the apocalypse. – front page, The New York Times Book Review
Triumphantly original. – The Philadelphia Inquirer
It’s a fable. It’s a farce. It’s a world situation tragi-comedy and a cartoon family romance. It’s all about the end of the world. Sweet…sad…scary, and how wonderfully well-done. This combination of inspired tenderness and brilliant technique is…characteristic throughout; it reads as if it were written by a very witty angel. – The Sunday Boston Herald
Funny, resonant…precisely expressive language. All the supporting characters are drawn with loving detail and complex stories of their own. – The San Francisco Chronicle
Haunting…For all its kaleidoscopic vision and fragmented structure Kramer’s novel is pleasurable for conventional reasons—the tantalizing enjoyment of surprise, of discovering who knows what about whom. – Newsday
The first novelist juggles big, weighty themes…with remarkable agility and surprising strength…She is an entertainer with both courage and conviction. – The Los Angeles Times
The work of a powerful imagination…a rarity among first novels, a rich multi-layered construct. Kathryn Kramer is a writer to be watched. – The Houston Chronicle

Thomas McGuane – Something to Be Desired (1985)

Bibliographic Description

85.04.W011: McGuane – Something to Be Desired

First Vintage Books Edition, April 1985

96 leaves, pp. [12] 1–2 3-173 [7] [only odd-numbered pages numbered from 3-173]

Contents: π1a blank, π1b blank, π2a blurbs and author photo, π2b “ALSO AVAILABLE IN VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES”, π3a half-title, π3b blank, π4a title, π4b imprint, π5a dedication, π5b blank, π6a epigraph, π6b blank, 1 fly-title, 2 blank, 3-173 Something to Be Desired, χ1b blank, χ2a about the author, χ2b blank, χ3a Vintage Contemporaries order form, χ3b Vintage Contemporaries list, χ4a blank, χ4b blank.

Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by David Monteil; interior author photo by Paul Dix.

Copies: JDP 1.4

Blurbs

(front cover) McGuane at his passionate and knowledgeable best. – The Chicago Tribune Book World
Gutsy, visionary, harshly beautiful. – Newsday
This is Thomas McGuane’s seventh book and also, I think, his best, a remarkable work of honest colors and fresh phrasings that deliver strong, earned emotional effects. In the world of this novel, which is a physical world brought into high, astonishing relief in almost every sentence, Lucien Taylor, a native son of Montana, embarks on a half-witted, half-unwilling voyage of self-discovery. – Robert Roper, The New York Times Book Review
Probably the season’s best literary offering….McGuane writes as if he invented the medium…tackling life, death, and whatever comes in between….Full of vintage McGuane wit, it is also McGuane’s tightest and most impeccably crafted novel yet. – The Denver Post
This beautiful balance between the comic and the bleak makes Something to Be Desired the newest testimony to McGuane’s huge and humane talents. – The Baltimore Sun
A constant pleasure. – People Magazine