UPDIKE, John .
The Afterlife.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf , 1994.
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First Edition of John Updike's The Afterlife; Inscribed by Him with an original drawing of Santa Claus and signed Three times by Jacket designer Chip Kidd
First edition of this work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author with an original drawing of Santa Claus by Updike on the front free endpaper, "for Blaine Merry Christmas to an old friend and former babysitter John Updike." Additionally signed three times by legendary jacket designer, on the front panel in the year of publication, on the front free endpaper and again on the rear panel jacket. Fine in a near fine price-clipped dust jacket. Jacket design by Chip Kidd and John Updike.
To the hero of the title story of this collection, all of England has the glow of an afterlife: “A miraculous lacquer lay upon everything, beading each roadside twig . . . each reed of thatch, each tiny daisy trembling in the grass.” All of these stories, each in its own way, partake of this glow, as life beyond middle age is explored and found to have its own exquisite dearness. As death approaches, existence takes on, for some of Updike’s aging characters, a translucence, a magical fragility; vivid memory and casual misperception lend the mundane an antic texture, and the backward view, lengthening, acquires a certain grandeur. “Marvelously moving . . . These tales evoke a certain peace and a definite wonder at what an astonishingly graceful writer Updike is" (USA Today).
The Afterlife.
$400.00
Out of Stock
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