First printing of Caldwell's exploration of interracial relationships in segregated Tennessee, affectionately inscribed to modernist critic Malcolm Cowley, a longtime admirer of Caldwell's work.
Very good plus in very good plus jacket.
Price: $750.00
"If your mother and I could've been married — if the law hadn't kept us from getting married because of our different color — your name now would be Jeff Danford and not Jeff Bazemore."
Malcolm Cowley not only praised Caldwell early on as an equal of Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Thomas Wolfe, but he maintained that high opinion with notable consistency over several decades, through to his final essay on "Caldwell's Magic" (1979). Interviewed after the release of THE WEATHER SHELTER, Caldwell insisted that he wrote for the common reader, not for the "big brains" or the critics, but allowed for Cowley as one of a few respected exceptions: "Cowley is a real good critic, no doubt about it[.]" An excellent association, inscribed from one great modernist to another.
Read more: Caldwell, Conversations with Erskine Caldwell; Cowley, "The Two Erskine Caldwells," The New Republic; MacDonald, Critical Essays on Erskine Caldwell; Willingham, "True Myth-Maker of the Post-Bellum South," The Georgia Historical Quarterly.
First edition. New York and Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, (1969). 8'' x 5.5''. Original quarter dark orange and yellow cloth. In original unclipped ($5.50) ochre dust jacket designed by S.A. Summitt, Inc. 190 pages. Inscribed by Caldwell on half-title page: "Malcolm Cowley — / It has been a long haul for both of us and we have had to use a lot of axle grease to keep the wheels from squeaking — Erskine Caldwell / August 1970." Book with light edgewear, foxing to top edge. Jacket with faint wear at corners, trace soil, toning to spine.
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