Play It As It Lays

New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970. First printing (stated). Octavo in pink-white DJ, orange spine, gilt to spine, deckle edges, 214 pages, 22 cm. Very gentle rubbing to spine head and foot, slight dampstains & ink-bleeding to jacket verso, with ever so slight impact to cloth (barely noticed); very mild bumping to front board-rear corner, light soiling to fore-edges, faint soiling to corners, bright pages, tight binding, extremely mild rubbing to DJ spine head and foot, exceedingly gentle wear to DJ corners, light soiling to front DJ, else Near Fine(-) in Near Fine(-) DJ. Hardcover.

DJ protected in archival mylar sleeve. Large b&w illustration of author to rear cover. "A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a place beyond good and evil -- literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul -- it remains more than three decades after its original publication a profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a society in crisis and stunning in the still-startling intensity of its prose."--Publisher. Women -- California -- Los Angeles -- Fiction.