HERE WE ARE IN PARADISE: STORIES

New York City, NY: Little, Brown & Company, 1994. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Little, Brown & Company, 1994. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 198 pages. The author's breakthrough debut collection of short stories. One of the most important literary debuts of the last decade of the 20th century. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Tony Earley's "Here We Are In Paradise: Stories". Published to enormous critical acclaim. It immediately established the author as one of the most accomplished writers of his generation. Eight pitch-perfect and perfectly crafted tales that "with quirky ruefulness, narrate the experiences of ordinary people who may or may not matter to anyone but themselves" (Publishers Weekly). "Charlotte" was selected as one of the "Best American Short Stories 1993". "My Father's Heart", the single best story in the collection, captures the complex and poignant feelings of a boy who knows his father only through the memories of others. As his debut novel, "Jim The Boy", shows, Earley's empathy for boyhood is profound and, as the glowing reviews indicate, worthy of comparison with J. D. Salinger's as well as Tobias Woolf's, in the way they capture a boy's "growing pains". His mastery of the English language is sublime, not just impressive. An absolute "must-have" title for Tony Earley collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in blue ink-pen on the title page by Tony Earley. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce signed copy thus. Tony Earley was selected by The New Yorker Magazine as one of "Twenty Writers for the 21st Century". One of the finest American writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER TONY EARLEY TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0316199621.