McMurtry's Own Copy

Paradise [Author's Copy]

McMurtry, Larry

Publication: New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001. First Edition.

Notes: Larry McMurtry's own copy of this travelog of a voyage to Tahiti, with the author's stirrup bookplate on the front pastedown.

Paradise is one of McMurtry's late, enigmatic non-fiction books, described on the dust jacket as "an inviting travel book...and an insightful reflection on his parents' marriage." On its face, not the most promising of premises, but it's useful to remember that McMurtry was a fine writer.

Your cataloguer's wife, herself a novelist and non-fiction writer, read Paradise on our recent trip to Tahiti. Her first response was, "Well, I guess if you are Larry McMurtry and you write 30,000 words on Tahiti, they let you publish it as a book." A few months later, when the book came up in conversation, she added to her initial assessment: "That book on Tahiti is fucking amazing."

159 pages.

Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing, with a numberline ending in 1). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket, with McMurtry's bookplate. Many of McMurtry's McMurtrys have fetched high prices at auction. [Not from the Tom Garner collection.]

ISBN: 0743215656

Item No: #363712

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