After Shocks/Near Escapes
by Stephen Dobyns (1941- )
- Used
- near fine
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Near Fine/Fine
- ISBN 10
- 0670839140
- ISBN 13
- 9780670839148
- Seller
-
Fort Worth, Texas, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
278 pages. Octavo (8 3/4" x 5 3/4") bound in original publisher's quarter black cloth with gilt label to spine with black lettering over beige boards in original pictorial jacket. First edition. Remainder mark at heal end pages. Make it new, said Pound, and Dobyns always does: this account of four extraordinary weeks in the life of a large Chilean family, sheltering from a series of earthquakes, is his best novel yet. The Big One rocked southern Chile on May 22, 1960, to be followed by months of smaller quakes and tremors, mudslides and tsunamis. Four thousand people were killed; the moon turned blood-red; many believed the end of the world was at hand. The solidly bourgeois Droppelman family of Puerto Varas experiences convulsions of its own, culminating in scandal. The story is told by eight-year-old Lucy, whose father, a cattle merchant, is killed by a falling chimney brick; she and her two brothers take refuge in their grandparents' farmhouse. Lucy's grandmother is overjoyed by the quake, since she has all her brood under one roof: very much the controlling matriarch, she envisions them all dying and entering Heaven together. Ironically, the opposite will happen: they will survive, but fragmented--because the earthquake frees the adults from conventional restraints. Great-aunt Clotilde dresses up for Death in her sister's wedding gown; gluttonous Uncle Walterio steals his nephew's candy; Aunt Miriam is permanently tipsy. Uncle Hellmuth and Alcibiades, formerly best friends, fall out when Alcibiades becomes infatuated with Hellmuth's wife, a self-absorbed coquette; there is a bloody fistfight, and Alcibiades leaves town. Lucy herself, devastated by her father's death, almost dies from a fever; her perspective is enriched by flash-forwards in which, 30 years later, the mature Lucy ponders the nature of memory and experience. Our often hapless attempts to control our lives are a common thread in Dobyns's work. But while Cold Dog Soup (1985) and The Two Deaths of Senora Puccini (1988) rested on outlandish premises, here Dobyns hits pay dirt with a credible situation that fits his preoccupations like a glove. Condition: Remainder to heal end pages else a near fine copy in a fine jacket.
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Details
- Bookseller
- The Book Collector ABAA, ILAB, TBA (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- BOOKS004740
- Title
- After Shocks/Near Escapes
- Author
- Stephen Dobyns (1941- )
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Near Fine
- Jacket Condition
- Fine
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First
- ISBN 10
- 0670839140
- ISBN 13
- 9780670839148
- Publisher
- Viking Press
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1991
- Bookseller catalogs
- Literature;
- Size
- Octavo
Terms of Sale
The Book Collector ABAA, ILAB, TBA
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About the Seller
The Book Collector ABAA, ILAB, TBA
Biblio member since 2005
Fort Worth, Texas
About The Book Collector ABAA, ILAB, TBA
The Book Collector specializes in the finest collections of Chess, Anthropology, Americana and American Literature. Visit our website at www.bookcollectorshop.com
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Leaves
- Very generally, "leaves" refers to the pages of a book, as in the common phrase, "loose-leaf pages." A leaf is a single sheet...
- Remainder Mark
- Usually an ink marking of some sort which indicates that the book was designated a remainder. In most cases, it can be found on...
- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- A.N.
- The book is pristine and free of any defects, in the same condition as ...