Hesitation Wounds: A Novel.

KOPPELMAN, Amy. [Joan Didion].

$600.00

Item Number: 141063

New York: The Overlook Press, 2015.

First edition of the author’s third book. Octavo, original half cloth. With an autograph note signed by the author tipped in which reads in full, “Dear Ms. Didion, You probably won’t remember me – about fifteen years ago I dropped off my MFA thesis and asked you if I was a real writer. You responded to me… “Yes. Amy you are a real writer.” I’ve held onto your words – rejection after rejection – “Yes Amy. You are a real writer.” and continued to write. I dropped off my second novel, I Smile Back. And now, as tradition has it, I am dropping off my third novel, Hesitation Wounds. I think it’s my best work – at least I respect it. I tried to write, as I always do, with a ferocious grace. Unapologetically. Or the better way to say it is I tried to write as you write. Heart first. Thank you as always, Amy.” The recipient, American journalist and novelist Joan Didion gained a reputation in the 1960s and 70s as a pioneer of the New Journalism style of news writing. Her articles and political writing engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the 1960s, the Hollywood lifestyle, California culture, and California history. She also gained recognition for her sensational novels, including her first nonfiction book, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, a collection of magazine pieces about her experiences in California. In 2005, Didion won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir of the year following the death of her husband. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Tracy Carns.

"Hesitation reads like a fever dream, or the last second of a deeply feeling woman's life. It is full of brilliantly observed pain and truth" (David Duchovny).