Get Home Free.
by Clellon Holmes, John
- Used
- Hardcover
- Signed
- first
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Palm Beach, Florida, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc, 1964. First edition of Clellon Holmes' third novel. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "May 1976 For Burt Britton- with appreciation- John Clellon Holmes." Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Paul Bacon. Five years before Kerouac's On the Road, Holmes's novel Go introduced the kind of lives and themes that later would be called Beat. Get Home Free, first published in 1964, also portrays the desperate and dissipated youth that congregated in New York City in the '50s. The novel takes its title from the child's game of kick-the-can, where players scurry back to home base; only here, the participants are existentialist adults. Bohemians Dan Verger and May Delano break up and, in separate sections, we follow them on visits home, Dan to the Connecticut shore ``to come to terms with a stalled life,'' and May to Louisiana, where she confronts her past as a Southern belle. Dan and May gain self-confidence, and, eventually calmer, more sober, they both return to New York determined to forge ahead. In Holmes's world, where ``even the hopelessness becomes curiously moving,'' May and Dan succeed by recognizing that their talky search for all the answers about love and their times, initially inspiring, has become tiring and even deadly; they shut up and just live. Infused with the characteristic Beat rawness, at times the novel is painful to read. It also often crackles with social observations that still speak true today, and there are many fine set pieces that evoke the splendor of rural life and the angst of the urban.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Raptis Rare Books (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 71478
- Title
- Get Home Free.
- Author
- Clellon Holmes, John
- Book Condition
- Used
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Publisher
- E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1964
- Keywords
- first edition signed, Get Home Free, JOhn CLellon Homes First Edition
Terms of Sale
Raptis Rare Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed.
About the Seller
Raptis Rare Books
Biblio member since 2012
Palm Beach, Florida
About Raptis Rare Books
Founded by Matthew and Adrienne Raptis, Raptis Rare Books is an antiquarian book firm that specializes in literature, children's books, economics, photo books, signed and inscribed books, and landmark books in all fields. Our business model is simple: we strive to handle books that are in exceptional condition and to provide exceptional customer service.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Inscribed
- When a book is described as being inscribed, it indicates that a short note written by the author or a previous owner has been...
- E.P.
- The double leaves bound into a book at the front and rear after ...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...