Oklahoma Town

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. Very Good+ in Good dj. (c.1931). First Edition. Hardcover. [modest shelfwear to bottom edge, light dust-soiling to top of text block, gift inscription (non-authorial) on front endpaper; the jacket is a bit rough, with a few small chips along the top edge, about 1/2" of paper loss to the top of the spine, small tears at several corners, and a number of internal tape-repairs]. Short (occasionally short-short) stories from the early Depression era, rendered in a kind of hard-boiled Ring Lardneresque manner. All are set in the same small Oklahoma town, and although each story stands on its own there are enough inter-connections that reading the book is something like living in the town for awhile, and getting acquainted (maybe more than you'd like) with its citizens and their sometimes dark and violent passions and prejudices. Milburn (1906-1966) set much of his fiction (including three later novels) in his native eastern Oklahoma, writing about (in the words of one critic) "very unpleasant places filled with disagreeable people." (A warning: if you're offended or triggered by the n-word, you'd best avoid this book, as it's steeped in the vernacular of its time and place.) .