Across a city a harried doctor makes his rounds: A dying child. A fatal streetcar accident. A stillborn delivery. A house-call to a mansion where, beneath an evocative painting of Susanna and the Elders, a former lord of the financial district broods upon his vanished power and awaits death in the company of his mercenary butler. Thus begins Middens of the Tribe, part family saga, part naturalistic novella. As the relationships between the characters reveal themselves, what emerges is a Tarot of the unfulfilled. The ...
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Across a city a harried doctor makes his rounds: A dying child. A fatal streetcar accident. A stillborn delivery. A house-call to a mansion where, beneath an evocative painting of Susanna and the Elders, a former lord of the financial district broods upon his vanished power and awaits death in the company of his mercenary butler. Thus begins Middens of the Tribe, part family saga, part naturalistic novella. As the relationships between the characters reveal themselves, what emerges is a Tarot of the unfulfilled. The frustrated artist. His lover, who posed as Susanna. A roughneck roundhouse worker. Wilma, whose identity is one of the book's most disturbing secrets. The tongue-tied office boy. The illusionist Doctor Magic and his long-suffering assistant. The tycoon. His scathingly self-deluded wife. Their children, a mysteriously estranged daughter and two sons, one following, however falteringly, in his father's footsteps, the other an archaeologist searching through the detritus of ancient lives for clues to the mysteries of his own: Can the middens of the tribe I study tell if family strife always reveals a culture's dynamics, if, amid bones, flints, sufferings are the same? Memories, nightmares, reveries intersect in Middens of the Tribe, unveiling a stark, four-dimensional nexus of lives intertwined -- leavened by touches of the comic and grotesque: a cubist rendering of alienation, intimacy, and loss. Daniel Hoffman's accomplishment is an ambitious one. For both narrative power and poetic intensity, Middens of the Tribe is an unforgettable book.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good. 1st printing of 1st paperback edition. Tight and clean with uncreased spine. Cover has minor rubbing. Ships from Dinkytown in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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Seller's Description:
Fine. First edition. Glossy wrappers. About fine being Daniel Hoffman's copy with his address label affixed to page 55 and his notes paper-clipped to last page. Poetry.
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Seller's Description:
Near Fine. First edition. Glossy wrappers. Corners lightly rubbed, else fine being Daniel Hoffman's copy with his address label affixed inside front wrapper. Poetry.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good. 0807120014. Large 8vo 9"-10" tall; 80 pages; Trade size paperback in glossy pictorial covers. Bright clean copy with just trace shelf evidence to externals. Laid in at rear in original mailing envelope is a Christmas card signed by thauthor-to fellow poet, Carmine Sarracino. VG+; Signed by Author.