With a 2-page Inscription
Already Dead: A California Gothic
Publication: New York: HarperCollins, 1997. First Edition.
Notes: A terrific association copy with a two-page inscription dated prior to publication. Already Dead is a novel of murder, marijuana, and life in Mendocino County, on California's northern timber coast. Michiko Kakutani, who was, at the time, the most influential American book critic, described the book in the New York Times as both "dismal" and "repugnant." One of Johnson's experiments in language in this book used quotes from the New Age guide to spirituality, A Course in Miracles, as dialogue.
Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing, with a numberline ending in 1). A very near fine copy (small white stains on the bottom of the boards) in a fine dust jacket. With the publisher's two-page press release, giving the publication date as August 1997, laid in. This copy is inscribed across two pages to the author Chris Offutt, who wrote Kentucky Straight, The Same River Twice, and a series of Southern noir mysteries.
Johnson wrote, "for Chris Offutt—Okay, yeah, I did get you outa that whorehouse that time in Butte but it wasn't really out of friendship—it was just an aesthetic thing, man, because you looked so pathetic in that flowered dress with those fake boobs and alla that purple lipstick. Love DJ. Next time try red—and how about tweezing them eyebrows just a little. DJ. [?] North Idaho USA July 1997."
Offutt interviewed Johnson as part of Portland, Oregon's Tin House writers workshop in the summer of 2003; he also publicly confirmed on Twitter Johnson's death from cancer in 2017. Johnson won the National Book Award for his novel Tree of Smoke.
Item No: #365298
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