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Ross, Adam : Mr. Peanut

Alfred A. Knopf, New York City, NY, 2010

ISBN 030727070X

First Edition / First Printing. As New in As New Dust Jacket. 345 pages. The author's breakthrough debut novel. One of the most important literary debuts of our time. 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 Adam Ross' "Mr. Peanut". His acclaimed first novel, hailed as a masterpiece by The New Yorker Magazine. Peanut-allergic Alice is found dead with a peanut lodged in her throat, an apparent suicide or a possible homicide. "Delivers one scorching scene after another showing the dark side of marriage. David and Alice Pepin have been married for thirteen years. Despite the fact that David continually declares that he has been in love with Alice ever since he first spotted her in a film class on Alfred Hitchcock, he is continually imagining her death via airplane crashes, carjackings, burglaries gone bad, shark attacks, and 'convenient acts of God'. After a particularly stressful period in their marriage, Alice is found dead at the kitchen table, and David is the prime suspect. Ross is interested in all the soul-killing ways men and women try and fail to achieve intimacy. With its noirish sensibility and eloquent prose, this novel depicts marriage as one long double homicide" (Joanne Wilkinson). If Paul Harding is saying in "Tinkers" (published the year before, in 2009) that healing is our reason for being, Adam Ross explores the exact opposite of that noble motive: Could it be that the real reason we are here is not to heal but to kill each other? Think about how it explains the civilized need to create more and more rules and laws not only against killing, but against cruelty, which is always gratuitous and is another form of killing. The precursor, from the male point-of-view, of such novels as Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl" (2012), Paula Hawkins' "The Girl On The Train" (2015), and Fiona Barton's "The Widow" (2016), from the female point-of-view. An absolute "must-have" title for Adam Ross collectors. This copy is very boldly and beautifully signed in black pen-marker on the half-title page (his preferred page) by Adam Ross. 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 still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. 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. One of the most brilliant new voices in American literature. A fine copy. . ISBN 030727070X.

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