Elizabeth Cole.

CHEEVER, Susan.

$375.00

Item Number: 142886

New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1989.

First edition of Cheever’s savage portrait of the New York art world. Octavo, original half cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “New York City May 4, 1990 To Ken Whose friendship and council have been my mainstay for all these years Susan Cheever.” The recipient, American litigator Kenneth David Burrows married American novelist Erica Jong in 1989. Jong remains best known for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying which became famously controversial for its portrayal of female sexuality and figured prominently in the development of second-wave feminism. Written in the first person and narrated by its protagonist, 29-year-old American poet Isadora Wing, Fear of Flying was written in the throes of the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s and encapsulated the movement’s redefinition of female sexuality. In interviews, Jong stated: “At the time I wrote Fear of Flying, there was not a book that said women are romantic, women are intellectual, women are sexual—and brought all those things together… What [Isadora is] looking for is how to be a whole human being, a body and a mind, and that is what women were newly aware they needed in 1973.” The novel remains a feminist classic and has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. From the library of Erica Jong and Ken Burrows. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket painting by Robert Rauschenberg.

"The heroine... is a 30-year-old New York graphic designer whose father is a famous artist. When first met, Elizabeth is involved in an intense affair with Sebastian Smith, a successful, married art dealer; she is still haunted by memories of her former lover, journalist Patrick Casey..." (Publishers Weekly).