Books

New York: E.P. Dutton, 1984. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. First edition. Fine in lightly worn, near fine dust jacket with a couple of tiny nicks. Inscribed to author and friend William Eastlake on the half-title: "To Bill / in continuing admiration / from Jim. 11/84," with a small drawing. William Eastlake is the author of the noted Checkerboard Trilogy. In 1955 he bought a 400-acre ranch in New Mexico that became a haven for writers like Edward Abbey, who made his first “pilgrimage” to the ranch in a Volkswagen bus, along with Robert Creeley, after reading Eastlake’s first novel, *Go in Beauty*. Eastlake said in 1975: “My original reason for coming to New Mexico was that the American West has never been written about. A great many illiterates (…) have tried (...) but never any artists (…) so I have moved in and staked it out. Our great West, the American promise, has been waiting for two hundred years to be discovered, and that has been my dedication and delight, my…

A novel that explores the life of a larger-than-life industrialist in rural Michigan, delving into themes of nature, industry, and personal redemption.