Hardcover
(c.1945) · New York
by Wolfson, Victor
New York: Simon and Schuster (A Venture Press Book). Very Good in Good+ dj. (c.1945). 4th printing. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [good sound copy with only minor shelfwear, the 5th of the book's 8 signatures (i.e. pp. 141-172) printed on cheaper paper and thus notably age-toned, one-time owner's signature on front endpaper, vintage bookseller's label (Paul Elder & Co., San Francisco) on rear pastedown; the jacket is worn at edges and extremities, with a small bit of surface insect-nibbling near the bottom of the rear panel]. The author's first novel, a psychological horror tale set in a small town on Cape Cod, about a young woman (the book's narrator) who enters into a loveless marriage to escape her abusive father (who rapes her at the age of 14), only to be subsequently abandoned and divorced by her husband. She becomes something of a recluse, until coaxed out of her isolation by a local groceryman, with whom she enjoys a budding romance -- until her ex-husband returns to town with a new (pregnant) wife, and moves in next door to her. Then, in the words of one contemporary review: "Obsessed by envy and rivalry, by her own inadequacies, the advent of Ed's baby adds the final touch to her brooding, bitter unhappiness and ---." (Sorry, I've already given you enough spoilers. No more!) One contemporary reviewer described the book thus: "Crackling with suspense, a story filled with emotional anguish and fearsome passion, [the novel] is a triumph for the author. Eerie and gruesome, yet haunting and deeply sincere, it achieves heroic stature because it creates an impression unforgettable." It was also announced shortly after its publication that the movie rights to the book had been acquired by agent-turned-producer Charles K. Feldman, but no film was ever made. However, Wolfson (already an established playwright when this book appeared) later dramatized it himself under the title "American Gothic"; it was staged at the Circle in the Square theatre in Greenwich Village in 1953, starring Clarice Blackburn and the then-unknown Jason Robards Jr., under the direction of Jose Quintero -- who later gave Robards his big break in his 1956 production of O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night." . (Inventory #: 26764)