Athens, America [SIGNED FIRST EDITION]
Baker, Larry
From Vero Beach Books, Vero Beach, FL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
AbeBooks Seller since March 20, 2019
From Vero Beach Books, Vero Beach, FL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
AbeBooks Seller since March 20, 2019
About this Item
Fine unread condition black boards with silver spine lettering contained in a fine condition non price-clipped color photographic dust jacket. Includes Author Dedication; Preliminary Page Quotes; Advice For Readers in Athens; and Acknowledgments. Signed by the author with black ink at the lower section of the title page. "Athens is the best of small college towns: affluent, cultured, tolerant, safe, and insulated from a world that seems to lack all those advantages. But at the beginning of a hot dry summer, Athens sheds its communal innocence as two teenagers are killed in a police chase gone bad. Joe Holly is a burned-out Athens councilman with a depressed wife, an autistic son, and his own downtown movie theatre which is losing money. His baby died fifteen years ago, but he talks to her every week when he visits her grave. Jack Hamilton married his college tutor, wrecked his knees playing professional football, and loves his job at the post office. Until his fifteen year old gifted daughter is killed, he thinks he is the luckiest man in the world. Running for re-election to an office he doesn't care about anymore, Holly is suddenly in the middle of a public crisis as the Athens police department is accused of negligence in the death of a drug-dealing thug, and. Becky Hamilton. As Holly's campaign for re-election nears the first Tuesday in November he finally understands his own limitations and the choice he must make. Hamilton and his wife Marcie refuse to participate in the public drama that their daughter's death has inspired. Their private grief has its own spiral, and all they want is to be left alone. Although Becky's parents could not save her life, they refuse to relinquish her memory to a public in search of a martyr. Athens, America is, finally, the story of two men dealing with public tragedy and private grief. And the lesson for a reader is from Joe Holly, who amends Tip O'Neill's famous axiom, "All politics is local." For Holly, "All local politics is personal." - from the inner front jacket flap. "I live in Athens, Iowa, a town that doesn't really exist except as a moral lesson in mass hysteria. North Carolina has Chapel Hill, the Athens of the South. Georgia has Athens, the Athens of Georgia. I have Athens, Iowa, the Athens of the Midwest. Iowa, more pigs than people, corn capital of the universe. Like all college towns, and island of art and intellect and tax supported affluence, a world safe from the crime and poverty and shameless hucksterism of the rest of America. Or so we tell ourselves. We're different. We're better. We live the life of the mind. A world of perpetual adolescence, a world in which half the population is engaged in preparing the other half for the future. Give us your young, we tell those nervous and loving parents who want their children's lives to be happier and more comfortable than their own. Give us your sons and daughters, their hopes and fears, their insecurities and their student loans. Wrap them in a ACT or SAT score and pack them off to Athens." - from the inner rear jacket flap. "Larry Baker's immense knowledge of local politics comes from his own experience, and that knowledge is put to dramatic effect in Athens, America. But Athens is more than a political novel. It's also a highly moral and humae story, with a narrator who is both astute and forgiving of human foibles. And, ultimately, while being a story about a certain kind of American, it's also a very tender love story. I hope it sells a million copies." - Haven Kimmel, author. "I read this extraordinary book in two enormous gulps while on the set in Vancouver. Athens has it all. Like a multi-layered world carved on ivory by the most skilled of Chinese artisans, Larry Baker has replicated our complicated, contentious, duplicitous, stupid, and deeply moving America. You'll see your town in this powerful story, and how you see yourself after reading it may be determined by who you are." - Peter Coyote, actor. Seller Inventory # 005861
Bibliographic Details
Title: Athens, America [SIGNED FIRST EDITION]
Publisher: First Coast Books
Publication Date: 2004
Binding: Hardcover
Illustrator: Horan, Howard (jacket and author photo and jacket layout); Baker, Larry (jacket concept)
Condition: Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
Signed: Signed by Author(s)
Edition: 1st Edition
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