I was cleaning out the far end of my Toyota minivan yesterday, and I came across a box of books that had been there since last December, which coincidentally enough was the last time I went out bookhunting. My friend Paul and I had gone up to the Northampton MA area for the day, and when we came home I thought better of lugging the books into the garage, which I was in the process of cleaning out, or trying to, and decided just to leave them in the back of the car.

    Which they were happy to be, until yesterday. And I was quite pleased to sort through my purchases again, marveling at what presence of mind I had to pick up so many books that I needed and still wanted.

    And two of them were more relevant than others. In my recent post on Roderick MacLeish, for example, I tried to explain the plot line for The Man who Wasn’t There, but without the book in hand, I didn’t know what I was trying to convey, and so how possibly could you?

    I have a copy of the paperback edition now, and thanks to the person who wrote the blurb on the back cover, it makes a lot more sense now:

Man

    “Aren’t you Rex Carnaby, the movie star?” asked the stranger on the plane. His name was Follensby.

    “No,” said Rex.

    “Jesus, you sure look like him!”

    “I’m his brother, Frederick Jackson Carnaby. We’re twins!”

    — This was the kind of lie with which millionaire film star Rex Carnaby often rid himself of autograph seekers. But this time it had very different results. The next day in Washington, Rex was shocked to read that the man he had invented was dead!

   This is more like it. A book to be put immediately on the To Be Read pile.

   The other book, one by Michael Kenyon, whose passing was also noted here not too long ago, was an Avon paperback reprint of Peckover Minds the Baby. The plot line was described before in a couple of short lines, so I won’t repeat it, even at longer length.

   But I like the cover, the artwork uncredited as usual, even in 1988, and here it is. (The details are very fine, and I hope you can make them out. That’s a portion of the arm of a body that you see toward the bottom of the stairs, for example.)

Peckover Baby

    And yes, you’re right, another book To Be Read, as soon as I can get to it.