The Price of Dirt

70 pp. collection of stories, illustrated throughout. 8vo. [Accent of California International Writers Series, 2] Very good. Illus. stiff wraps. [1406]

The Kentucky-born, Los Angeleno author's debut short story collection, including "The Price of Dirt," "The Way of Shadows," "In the Dark," "Waiting for Mongo," and "Roman Times," which won the Gwendolyn Brooks Literary Award in 1972. In his preface to the work, Jones explains that "most of the stories in this collection employ modern literary techniques as diverse as impressionism and surrealism, and especially important is the experimental synthesis of fantasy/realism. Myths and mythical notions, for example, are sometimes utilized in a campy fashion. Black field hand dialect might end up in the mouths of the most educated aristocrats. Nevertheless, all of this is not only plausible and appropriate to the situation, but also creates effects which are organically natural to the stories in this book. THE PRICE OF DIRT is the collected stories of a people's reactions to a fantastic world designed to exclude them and their reality." Scarce in the marketplace and institutionally uncommon.