Middle C [SIGNED, 1st PRINT}

William Gass

ISBN 10: 0307701638 / ISBN 13: 9780307701633

Published by Knopf, 2013

About this Item

Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2013. Hard Cover. Book Condition: As New. Dust Jacket Condition: As New. Stated First Edition, presumed first printing with no printing history noted on copyright page. 9-1/2" tall, 395 numbered pages; gray-green boards with blue-gray quarter binding, gilt lettering on spine only; boards plain; plain ivory end pages; fore edge is not trimmed. Book is square, hinges tight, corners not bumped, no dings on edges, head and heel of spine undamaged, interior clean and unmarked; no page corners folded or damaged; no staining or discoloration. Jacket is clean; no tears, folds or fading; very slight crease at heel of spine; publisher's original price of "U.S.A. $28.95 / Canada $34.00" listed on the upper right corner of front flap. Condition of book and jacket consistent with being brand new and not read. No other discernible or objectionable faults on book or jacket such as marks or writing within, stains, tears, chips, or other damage that would diminish its appearance. No remainder mark, no previous owner markings or inscriptions, not price clipped, not a book club edition, not a former library book. Quite legibly signed by the author in thin black felt tip pen on the title page (not on a tip-in page) above his printed name. Purchased in mid April, 2013, from a reputable Washington D. C. dealer. Despite his advanced age, Gass' signature is clean, flowing, and elegant, with none of the unsteadiness that one sometimes finds in writers his age. At almost ninety years old, Gass understandably did not promote the book in person. Gass was 88 years old when this was published and did not tour for this book; the signed editions are probably quite rare.

Seller Inventory # RMB-2019-3-12-1

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Middle C [SIGNED, 1st PRINT}
• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0307701638
• ISBN 13: 9780307701633
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: As New
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

A literary event—the long-awaited novel, almost two decades in work, by the acclaimed author of The Tunnel (“The most beautiful, most complex, most disturbing novel to be published in my lifetime.”—Michael Silverblatt, Los Angeles Times; “An extraordinary achievement”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post); Omensetter’s Luck (“The most important work of fiction by an American in this literary generation”—Richard Gilman, The New Republic); Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife; and In the Heart of the Heart of the Country (“These stories scrape the nerve and pierce the heart. They also replenish the language.”—Eliot Fremont-Smith, The New York Times).

Gass’s new novel moves from World War II Europe to a small town in postwar Ohio. In a series of variations, Gass gives us a mosaic of a life—futile, comic, anarchic—arranged in an array of vocabularies, altered rhythms, forms and tones, and broken pieces with music as both theme and structure, set in the key of middle C.

It begins in Graz, Austria, 1938. Joseph Skizzen's father, pretending to be Jewish, leaves his country for England with his wife and two children to avoid any connection with the Nazis, who he foresees will soon take over his homeland. In London with his family for the duration of the war, he disappears under mysterious circumstances. The family is relocated to a small town in Ohio, where Joseph Skizzen grows up, becomes a decent amateur piano player, in part to cope with the abandonment of his father, and creates as well a fantasy self—a professor with a fantasy goal: to establish the Inhumanity Museum . . . as Skizzen alternately feels wrongly accused (of what?) and is transported by his music. Skizzen is able to accept guilt for crimes against humanity and is protected by a secret self that remains sinless.

Middle C tells the story of this journey, an investigation into the nature of human identity and the ways in which each of us is several selves, and whether any one self is more genuine than another.

William Gass set out to write a novel that breaks traditional rules and denies itself easy solutions, cliff-edge suspense, and conventional surprises . . . Middle C is that book; a masterpiece by a beloved master.

About the Author

William H. Gass—essayist, novelist, literary critic—was born in Fargo, North Dakota. He is the author of six works of fiction and nine books of essays, including Life Sentences, A Temple of Texts, and Tests of Time. Gass is a former professor of philosophy at Washington University. He lives with his wife, the architect Mary Gass, in St. Louis.