[within compartment of triple rules 155 x 87 mm] Family | Resemblances | [rule 12 mm] | Lowry Pei | [rule 12 mm] | Vintage Contemporaries | Vintage Books | A Division of Random House | New York
(front cover) A remarkable first novel. – The New York Times Book Review
Karen Moss—fifteen and a half, recovering from her first real crush on a boy—is sent to spend the summer with her Aunt Augusta, a beautiful, thirty-five-year-old insomniac who keeps the windows of her old Buick closed so that people will think it’s air-conditioned. During the summer Karen leanrs many things—how to drive a car, how to drink wine, the appeal of baseball and, not least, the many forms that love can take and the demands it makes.
Mr. Pei’s clean, limpid, almost translucent prose renders the perfect plot of Family Resemblances all but invisible as small events build to genuine suspense….The complicated losses and gains…make for good fiction and plenty of ambiguity. Or, as Augusta told Karen at the beginning of the summer, ‘Things are not anywhere near as black and white as you think, you’ll find that out someday if you have the nerve to pay attention.’ – The New York Times Book Review
Engages the reader, even brings tears. – Chicago Tribune
Captures the glory and anguish of adolescence. – Harvard Magazine
ANYWHERE | BUT HERE | by | MONA SIMPSON | [patterned rule 17.5 mm] | VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES | VINTAGE BOOKS A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE NEW YORK | [patterned rule 91 mm]
Copies: JDP 1.6, with other images consulted online
Blurbs
(front cover) Mona Simpson takes on—and reinvents—many of America’s essential myths….A stunning first novel. – Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Mona Simpson’s deeply moving and often comic novel is at once a portrait of Ann August, wise child, and her mother, Adele, a larger than life American Dreamer, and a brilliant exploration of the perennial urge to keep moving, even at the risk of profound disorientation. Generous is scope and characterization, rich in imagery and poetic language, Anywhere But Here is a truly remarkable achievement.
One of the most highly praised literary debuts in years, “crafted with the assurance and virtuosity of a seasoned storyteller.” – Wall Street Journal
A real big, burgeoning talent. The two women in this book are American originals. Ann is a new Huck Finn, a tough, funny, resourceful love of a girl. Adele is like no one I’ve encountered, at once deplorable and admirable—and altogether believable. – Walker Percy
An amazing novel. Mona Simpson joins those female literary stars—Colette, Willa Cather—whose voices are uniquely recognizable, always their own. – Gail Lumet Buckley, Vogue
Brilliant, funny, at times astonishing…To judge from Anywhere But Here, Ms. Simpson is both a novelist and a poet, and her talents are prodigious. – Le Anne Schreiber, The New York Times Book Review
Copies: JDP 1.4, with other images consulted online
Blurbs
(front cover) A powerful and profoundly disturbing book…reminiscent of the painting of Bosch…Kosinski’s prose is perfect to his purpose, lucid as a gem. – The New York Times
Jerzy Kosinski’s classic vision of moral and sexual estrangement brilliantly captures the disturbing undercurrents of modern politics and culture. In this haunting novel, distinctions are eroded between oppressor and oppressed, perpetrator and victim, narcissism and anonymity. Kosinski protrays men and women both aroused and desensitized by an environment that disdains the individual and seeks control over the imagination in this unforgettable and immensely provocative work.
Céline and Kafka stand behind this accomplished art….Low keyed, efficient, controlled, the prose of Steps encompasses the banal, the picturesque, the monstrous….Scene illuminates adjacent scene; vignette after vignette stays in the memory. – Hugh Kenner, The New York Times Book Review
Steps is a beautifully written book. It is precise, scrupulous, and poetic. I can think of few writers who are able to so persuasively describe an event, set a scene, communicate an emotion. – Geoffrey Wolff, New Leader
More than a novel, this is a collection of erotic reminiscences, a log of the outrageous. – Newsweek
DENIS JOHNSON | [rule 97.5 mm] | THE [symbol] | STARS | [symbol] AT [symbol] | NOON | [rule 97.5 mm] | VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES | Vintage Books A Division of Random House New York
(front cover) A daring novel…Denis Johnson is one of our most inventive, unpredictable novelists. – The New York Times Book Review
Set in Nicaragua in 1984, The Stars at Noon is a story of passion, fear, and betrayal told in the voice of an American woman whose mission in Central America is as shadowy as her surroundings. Is she a reporter for an American magazine, as she sometimes claims, or a contact person for Eyes for Peace? And who is the rough English businessman with whom she becomes involved? As the two foreigners become entangled in increasingly sinister plots, Denis Johnson masterfully dramatizes a powerful vision of spiritual bereavement and corruption.
Ambitious and haunting…It is as if one is reading a Graham Greene novel through a surreal haze….Johnson’s prose conjures up a world that is as tangible as it is magical. He is an utterly brilliant and original talent—a novelist who reminds us just how wonderful fiction can be when a writer with enormous gifts and intelligence takes large risks. – Philadelphia Inquirer
Denis Johnson is uncommonly adept at capturing the anguished futility of people to escape from their own worst enemy—themselves….His prose can only serve to bolster his reputation as a first-rate stylist. – Baltimore Sun
A powerful tale…Johnson reminds us that political ideals have little to do with the shifting alliances and rhetoric by which we define our allies and enemies. – San Francisco Chronicle
[in three dimensional lettering] TO SKIN | A CAT | THOMAS | McGUANE | [in two dimensional lettering] STORIES | VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES | VINTAGE BOOKS | A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE | NEW YORK
(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
