Disturbing the Peace; A Novel

New York: Delacorte Press / Seymour Lawrence, 1975. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Printing (so stated). 8vo: [10],278pp. Publisher's black cloth, spine and upper cover stamped in red and gilt, top edge stained red, fore- and bottom edges untrimmed, red end papers, illustrated dust jacket priced $7.95. Fine unread copy in Fine jacket with blurbs by John Ciardi, Tennessee Williams, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., William Styron, Dorothy Parker, and John Thompson. Scarce such. To all appearances, Yates's protagonist, John Wilder, has all the trappings of Sixties success—promising career, loving family, beautiful city apartment and country home—but something deep within this seemingly perfect life has long since soured. More for Revolutionary Road, his debut novel, than for this comparatively ham-fisted effort, Yates is often considered the great forgotten novelist of 20th-century America. Yet he survived by doing corporate PR, writing copy for the Remington Rand Corporation about generations of spanking new computers. He belonged to no literary faction, declining to call himself a realist, insisting that all novels came "filled with techniques. . . . The emotions of fiction are autobiographical," he once observed, "but the facts never are . . ." Disturbing the Peace "is Richard Yates's only bad book, but it came at a time when critics were looking for a comeback. . . . It had been fourteen years since Revolutionary Road, and the author had shown no further signs of greatness. As slowly as he composed, it might be five or ten years before another Yates novel—if, indeed, there was one left in him. Disturbing the Peace confirmed for some that Yates was finished, that, like Fitzgerald and so many others, he'd squandered his talent, drank it away." (Boston Review) Note: With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed.