Desperation (#11 of 19 with an Original Remarque at Title Pages by Illustrator Don Maitz)

King, Stephen

ISBN 10: 0670868361 / ISBN 13: 9780670868360

Published by Donald M. Grant, New York, New York, U.S.A., 1996

About this Item

Gift edition with matching traycase published by Donald M. Grant in a special print-run of 19; each uniquely remarqed copy with different artwork. Signed to title page: "Don Maitz, 11/19". Features a hand painted color illustration by Don Maitz spreading across title and adjacent page featuring the wolf amongst desert lizards and scorpions. Very attractive. Retains original wax leaf to contain design from bleed. Large 7 1/2" x 10 3/4" design weighing nearly four lbs. in case. Accompanying this special edition, a sealed pencil sketch of same wolf scene mounted on stiff foam board w/card to back: "Certificate of Original Artwork. This is an original work of art created and signed by the artist, Don Maitz. Title: Desperation Wolf Sketch in Pencil, 'Don Maitz, 1-9-10'". Dark maroon textured leather or leather-like boards, bright gilt cover and spine titles overlay blind-stamped block lettered 'Stephen King,' fine. Pages fine. Pictorial collage matte endpapers. Illustrated with four dynamic full color glossy plates; two span over adjacent page. Also, full and partial-page vignettes, headers, etc. in b&w greet the reader throughout. Bind fine, square; hinges intact. Unique dust wrapper features version of the cop with smoke willowing from pistol wrapping around to back cover where a glowing orb ebbs; unclipped 75.00, protected in new clear sleeve. Includes the original slipcase matching boards in design with maroon textured leather or leather-like design, bright gilt cover and spine titles, and a scorpion vignette to front corner, slight wear. Black felt interior. Fine artist signed first edition in same slipcase with an original signed sketch. Includes original errata set in: "Errate Sheet, Follows Page 96, Desperation, '96b' 'cop was talking about. 'Lips which lie are best kept silent,' the cop said, tossing the hat that wasn't his over into the passenger seat. It landed on a tan-'" This tale follows a group of cross-country travelers, a writer, a family on vacation, and a professor with his wife, who all end up in the little mining town of Desperation where a crazed policeman and a pervasive evil compels them to fight for their lives. Somewhere along Route 50 in the Nevada desert exists this dead-end town. Those who enter embark on a never-ending journey of desperation, lunacy, and terror, as they find true desolation in a town that no one leaves. Companion piece to the Bachman's "The Regulators." 525 pages. Insured post. Size: 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall.

Seller Inventory # 021232

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Desperation (#11 of 19 with an Original Remarque at Title Pages by Illustrator Don Maitz)
• Publisher: Donald M. Grant, New York, New York, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670868361
• ISBN 13: 9780670868360
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Maitz, Don
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Artist
• Book Type: Book

About this title

Synopsis

Nevada is mostly a long stretch of desert you cross on the way to somewhere else. And with someone else, if you're lucky...because it's a scary place. Headed down Route 50 in the brutal summer heat are people who are never going to reach their destinations. Like the Jacksons, a professor and his wife going home to New York City; the Carvers, a Wentworth, Ohio, family bound for a vacation at Lake Tahoe; and aging literary lion Johnny Marinville, inventing a gonzo image for himself astride a 700-pound Harley.
A dead cat nailed to a road sign heralds the little mining town of Desperation, a town that seems withered in the shade of a man-made mountain known as the China Pit. But it's worse than that, much worse. Regulating the traffic there is Collie Entragian, an outsize uniformed madman who considers himself the only law west of the Pecos. God forbid you should be missing a license plate or find yourself with a flat tire.
There's something very wrong here, all right, and Entragian is only the surface of it. The secrets embedded in Desperation's landscape, and the evil that infects the town like some viral hot zone, are both awesome and terrifying. But as young David Carver seems to know - though it scares him nearly to death to realize it - so are the forces summoned to combat them.

Review

A notice to those who feel that Stephen King has lost his magic touch: Desperation is the genuine goods. The ensemble cast of ordinary Americans thrown together by chance, including a disgruntled alcoholic writer and a child who is wise beyond his years, may be a bit too familiar. But the nearly deserted Nevada mining town with an enormous haunted mine pit and an abandoned movie theatre where the survivors hang out makes for a striking battleground, and the grisly action rarely flags. Best of all, though, are the characters of Tak, the ancient body-hopping evil who emerges from the mine, and of "God"--whom the New York Times describes as "the edgiest creation in Desperation. Remote, isolated, ironic, shrouded behind disguises, perhaps ‘another legendary shadow,' this deity forms a sly foil, and an icy mirror, to Tak."