STILLNESS AND SHADOWS. Edited and with an Introduction by Nicholas Delbanco
first edition
1986 · New York
by Gardner, John
New York: Knopf, 1986. Advance Uncorrected Proofs. A near fine copy in the original green perfect bound wrappers with black stamping to front cover and spine. Uncorrected Proofs with info sheet taped to front cover. Novelist Nicholas Delbanco, Gardner's literary executor, has taken it upon himself to give to posthumous (and not intended to be published) Gardner manuscripts the pitiless light of day. Stillness, an autobiographical portrait, was, says Delbanco, undertaken by Gardner "as a process of therapy, as an exercise of recall engaged in with his wife." It's a picture of Gardner's first marriage: a whip-sharp woman, with nowhere special to put her natural talents, is married to a charismatic and rich but plodding novelist ("Very handsome. . .his prematurely silver hair flowing down his back. . .his English-Irish-Welsh voice singing through language . . .People wept, listening"). It is, in its mixture of vanity and complete self-absorption, a document of personal honestyâbut to read it as anything approaching a novel is a little like giving a pool-maintenance contract to a narcissist. 420 pages. (Inventory #: 15016)