- First Edition
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: Old Algonquin Books, LONE TREE, CO, U.S.A.Old Algonquin Books
AbeBooks seller since May 11, 2004
Association member: RMABA
Condition: Used - Fine
US$ 6.50
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
Author's first novel is about a young girl coming of age in 1950's rural Texas. First printing.
Seller Inventory # 1689
- Title
- Square Dance
- Author
- Hines, Alan
- Publisher
- Harper & Row, NY
- Publication year
- 1984
- Condition
- Fine
- Dust jacket
- Fine
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0060152974
- ISBN 13
- 9780060152970
- Edition
- First edition.
- Seller catalogs
- Fiction & Literature
--Publishers Weekly
Set on the Blackland prairie of Texas in the early 1950s, Square Dance is the story of Homer Dillard, a cantankerous old man, and his eleven-year-old precocious and Bible-toting granddaughter, Gemma. They live together on a tumbledown chicken farm and sell eggs door to door in the nearby small town of Twilight. Dillard is eighty years old, left by his wife and by his daughter, Gemma's mother. Both have been abandoned, and their grudging loyalty to each other is at once fierce and touching. Incensed by Dillard's cussedness, Gemma finally packs up out of moral indignation and strikes off for the supposed glamour of Fort Worth, where her estranged mother lives a life of tawdry failure as a hairdresser.
So begins Gemma's remarkable journey, and in telling it, Alan Hines has created a rich, touching, and funny novel about the pains of growing up and growing old.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review
--Kirkus Review (starred)
"Square Dance is far removed from the kind of strange humour we have come to associate with the South. ...There is a sense of authorial freedom here, an awareness of a literary heritance that is no longer stifling."
--Times Literary Supplement
"An artful first novel that turns on solid, memorable characters and a well-sculpted plot."
--Newsday
" A fine character drama...What Mr. Hines has accomplished is a marvelous mood piece. His tornado-prone Texas landscapes echo the violence of emotions that erupt without warning."
--Kansas City Star
"A carefully wrought book, with firmly drawn characters and a richly realized sense of time and place that recall both setting and themes of McCullers' A Member of the Wedding and Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird."
--ALA Booklist
"A witty and mordant picture of life."
--Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"Absorbing... You will feel everything Alan Hines meant for you to feel when he wrote this excellent novel...He writes with a feel for the state's culture and landscape that's bound to make Larry McMurtry fans sit up and take notice."
--Wichita Falls Times
"A tense and tender story from an uncommonly gifted new writer."
--San Jose Mercury News
"A finely crafted work that proves Hines knows his south as well as Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner and Harper Lee know theirs."
--Cedar Rapids Gazette
"A faithful, finely detailed depiction of a young girl's growing up in the Texas Bible Belt of a generation ago. All his characters are brought to life...The broken, inhibited friendship between a black and a white man is understated but fully realized. The description of a Texas twister comes out of direct observation, as does the whole book."
--James Purdy
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Old Algonquin Books
LONE TREE, CO, U.S.A.
Shipping rates within U.S.A.
| Item | 6 to 15 business days | 2 to 5 business days |
|---|---|---|
| First item | US$ 6.00 | US$ 20.00 |
Payment methods
- Bank Draft
- Check
- Money Order
- Paypal
Store description
The Old Algonquin Bookstore was an open shop in Denver from 1984 to 1994. Since 1995 Old Algonquin Books has been a mail and internet only business. We are active and founding members of the Rocky Mountain Antiquarian Booksellers Association (www.rmaba.org). Visit our website: www.oldalgonquin.com
Specialty
Fine books in all categories: biographies, history, mysteries, literature, etc.., old-time radio, AmericanaAssociation member
Seller's business information
Old Algonquin Books
CO, U.S.A.
Terms of sale
Books sold to US customers are are sent via US Postal Service media mail(book rate) unless requested otherwise. All books with dust jackets are covered with mylar. Books are returnable for full refund if not as described.
Helen Dunning, Old Algonquin Books
Arvada CO 80007
phone: 303-431-1562
email: books@oldalgonquin.com
Colorado tax ID # 2150002
Shipping terms
Email us at books@oldalgonquin.com if you have questions before ordering. Orders are shipped within 2 business days via USPS media mail in the U.S. unless requested otherwise. Visit our website at www.oldalgonquin.com.