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This is one of approximately 70 copies that were sent out for review with manuscript corrections to five words that were omitted from the last line of page 231. First state of limited edition that has been privately printed. Publisher's original promotional black and white photo of the author laid in. A Fine to As New copy in Fine to As New dustwrapper. Hardly noticeable, slight yellow fading about 1/4 inches wide at bottom of pages and dustwrapper, otherwise as new book. Appears unread copy, pages and cover are crisp and intact. Protected in clear Mylar cover. 0374144141 Summary: One of Anthony Burgess' s '99 Best Novels in English since 1939'. Bernard Malamud, an author of novels and short stories, was, along with Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, one of the great American Jewish authors of the 20th century. He won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1959 for 'The Magic Barrel' and in 1967 for 'The Fixer' which also won the 1967 Pulitizer Prize Award for Fiction. Malamud is renowned for his short stories, often oblique allegories set in a dreamlike urban ghetto of immigrant Jews. Of Malamud the short story writer, Flannery O'Connor wrote: I have discovered a short-story writer who is better than any of them, including myself. Among his eight novels are 'The Natural', 'The Assistant, 'The Fixer', and 'Dubin's Lives'. 'Dubin's Lives' is a compassionate and wry commedia, a book praised by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt in The New York Times as Malamud's 'best novel since 'The Assistant'. Possibly, it is the best he has written of all.' Its protagonist is one of Malamud's finest characters; prize-winning biographer William Dubin, who learns from lives, or thinks he does: those he writes, those he shares, the life he lives. Now in his later middle age, he seeks his own secret self, and the obsession of biography is supplanted by the obsession of love--love for a woman half is age, who has sought an understanding of her life through his books. 'Dubin's Lives' is a rich, subtle book, as well as a moving tale of love and marriage. "'Dubin's Lives' is a moving tale of love and marriage, a rich and subtle novel by Bernard Malamud, master of the surprises and joys of fiction. William Dubin, prize-winning biographer of H. D. Thoreau, is the steadfast, somewhat comic hero. Dubin learns from lives, or thinks he does: those he writes, those he shares, the life he lives. Here he is, in his later middle age, seeking youth, adventure, greater accomplishment, his secret self. The obsession of biography is supplanted by the obsession of love. He suffers, he loses his bearings. His sensible, lovely wife, Kitty, gets short shrift. He finds it impossible to placate his grownup children. As Dubin, a demon for discipline, runs, walks, diets - even tries to read his way back to the productive creative life - he is struggling to complete a major work, 'The Passion of D. H. Lawrence'. Change -redemption? - eludes him until he is driven to tempt fate in unpredictable ways. William Dubin is one of the finest characters created by Bernard Malamud. 'Dubin's Lives' is a compassionate, wry commedia, a rich and readable novel, magnificently told, which confirms the fact that there is no other living writer who, as Alfred Kazin has said, 'comes so close to the bone of human feeling, who makes one feel so keenly the enigmatic quality of life'. 1st Printing 1st Printing 1st Printing. Seller Inventory # 000029
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