For my Bibliophiles

Austin has a chain of bookstores called Half-Priced Books. Isn't that cool? I've thought so ever since we moved here. I used to ride one of the Dwyce bicycles over to the north-central location and just peruse. Once I found a 1964 edition of Pynchon's V., which was too sweet for my blood...also, it wasn't like it was a first edition or anything, and it was one of the heavily cut editions, about seventy pages shorter than the copy I have and read.

The other day while in the neighborhood of the same store, Corrie and I stopped by to find a very specific book for a belated Decemberween present. We've had a hell of a time finding this book, two obstacles we have are not knowing the title or the author. These problems are compounded by the book being published by a small press, if not self-published and self-peddled by the author themself.

While we couldn't really make headway our search for this particular book, I did find a rare copy of Billy Lee Brammer's The Gay Place, a collection of three novels all set in Austin in the fifties starring Gov. Arthur "Goddam" Fenstemaker, a brash character study of Brammer's good buddy LBJ. The book has been called a twin to All the King's Men in it's importance as an American political novel.

The other find on this particular trip was, in a word, spectacular.



I've been looking up some facts on this copy. It was a first paperback edition. The first hardback edition was released on January 1st, 1973. This edition was released in Febuary of 1973. The section breaks are set differently, and it's cool to see the original. I've seen a first hardbound edition, with original dustcover, for $2500, and one like the copy I just found I've seen for $200. I don't plan on selling, of course. The gentleman who checked me out at Half-Priced Books said, "wow. You're lucky to get this. These copies never last a week."

Now my Pynchon shelf has gone from this:



To this: