Chandler Brossard — Who Walk in Darkness

New York, A New Directions Book, 1952. First edition. Cloth. A smart first edition of the debut novel of American novelist Chandler Brossard. First edition. The author's debut novel. A novel portraying the bohemian life of the late 1940s Greenwich Village, sometimes called the first beat novel. Through it, Brossard became associated with early Beat Generation writers, however he said that reviewers who characterized Who Walk in Darkness as a beat novel "totally missed getting the book. They thought it was a realistic novel, which of course it wasn't. The French critics knew better. They perceived it as the first 'new wave' novel, a nightmare presented as flat documentary."* Written by Chandler Brossard, an American novelist, writer, editor, and teacher. With a challenging style and outsider characters, Brossard had limited critical success in the United States at the time of his writing, and his novels were more appreciated in France and Great Britain. More recently, his early works have been described as "landmarks of the postwar American novel." *Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 16 - The Beats: Literary Bohemians in Postwar America, The Gale Group, 1983. In the original full cloth binding. Externally, very smart with minor wear to the extremities. Original unclipped dust wrapper is smart with light wear and chipping to the extremities. Minor loss to the head and tail of the spine with the odd small closed tear to the panel edges. Internally, firmly bound. Pages are very bright with minor age toning to the extremities. Near Fine . Ill.: None. Near Fine/Very Good.