The Deadwood Beetle

New York: Bluehen Books, 2001. AS5 - A first edition (complete numberline) hardcover book SIGNED by Mylene Dressler on the title page in very good condition in very good dust jacket. Dust jacket and book have some bumped corners, light discoloration and shelf wear. 8.75"x5.5", 226 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. We sat for a moment in a lagoon of silence I found myself grateful for, staring out over my lifted coffee cup, I wondered how long I could go on this way. Sitting in this high, airy, dusky flat of Cora Lowenstein's, with a desert palm swaying over my head, and her late husband looking over my shoulder, his round eyes behind his round glasses starring out at me like a pair of loaded binoculars, his poodle locked up in a room somewhere because of me, ringing its bell feverishly. And there his piano, standing silently, which he must have played to his guests, or perhaps sometimes only to his wife, alone. Would it have been Chopin? Schubert? Liszt? While she listened, right there, in that very seat, soaking in the expert vibrations of his lean, accomplished hands. And I was yearning toward her. While I sat huddled, unable to be truthful with her, to tell her that my mother was not romantic at all, no, no, by the time I knew her, but only rigid, and matter-of-fact, and grinding, and cold. I could smell myself sweating and suffering again, I began to look for a way to steer our meeting back toward my goal. For Cora Lowenstein must give in to me, Cora Lowenstein must see how badly I needed to pull my family's thorn from her side. And since I couldn't' be honest with her in one way. I decided that the best thing would be to be honest with her in another, and let her see how pitiable I was. Let her see how needy and hungry an older man could really be. "I do have my son. Christopher. But we don't speak." "That's too bad. Was it because of the divorce?" "No Cora." There I had used her name. She blinked. Glancing away. Wiping the rim of her saucer with her napkin. She had spilled some cream. I'd noticed it. It then occurred to me, for the first time, that perhaps she sneezed as well. And brushed her teeth. And slept. And even hiccupped. Even more surprising to me, she leaned forward, and in a movement I hadn't seen before set her cup down and brought her knees together under her skirt with her hands, as though to prevent her legs from getting up and starting away. She sat very still. As though she wasn't sure she ought to listen. - from THE DEADWOOD BEETLE. Signed by Author. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.