synopsis
Holding on to a loved one can be difficult, but certainly not as weird and treacherous as in this quartet of Cornell Woolrich novellas set in the mid-1930s. It’s a time of great incongruities — physical anguish of the Great Depression, lighthearted dancing to the rhythms of swing; near-legendary bank robbers, daredevil long-distance airplane pilots; head bashing of union members, air-conditioned comfort for movie goers.
Woolrich takes this milieu, adds an overlay of the supernatural, and places his protagonists in grotesque, untenable situations involving their lives and souls. Here is the eerie world of voodoo, Frankenstein-style reincarnation, live burial, and macabre garments — a mixture of cold sweat-producing dilemmas, where the characters find it near-impossible to separate the real from the unreal.
This is a handsome hardcover, 300 copies, 5⅝ × 9 inches, bound in cloth with color inset on the front board, fine dustjacket on Mohawk Carnival paper, ribbon marker, full color endpapers and interiors, old book covers, top-edge stain, and a special four-page tipped-in signature plate.
edition information