The Oranging of America and other stories
New York: Bantam Books, 1978. Bantam Edition [stated]. Presumed first printing. Mass market paperback. [8], 163, [5] pages. Some page discoloration. Inscribed by the author on the title page. The inscription reads For Check, Best regards, Max Apple Feb 23, 1978. The author of these short stories focuses his attention on Monte Hall, nuclear physics, Howard Johnson, and a national leader from Grand Rapids. Max Apple (born October 22, 1941) is an American short story writer, novelist, and professor at The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Apple was born to a Jewish family in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and received his B.A. (1963) and Ph.D. (1970) from the University of Michigan. Apple taught creative writing at Rice University in Houston, Texas, for 29 years, where he held the Fox Chair in English. After retiring from Rice University, Apple moved to Philadelphia, where he teaches at The University of Pennsylvania. Along with his published novels and short story collections, he wrote the screenplays for Smokey Bites the Dust, The Air Up There, and Roommates (based on his 1994 biography Roommates: My Grandfather's Story). Derived from a Kirkus review: Take a household name. Toss it up against the wall that barricades reality from fantasy--splat and voila: a Max Apple story. The White House cook on the morning of Nixon's farewell: "The poor man hasn't moved his bowels yet. Without morning coffee, he is cement." Comrade Fidel on American baseball stars imported from Cuba: "Yes, we have no bananas but we got vine-ripened Latinos who play good ball all year." Game-show host Larry Love eyeing his on-the-air assassin's gun: "Go ahead if you must. . . in this business time is money." Funny, icy stuff mostly, easy targets (TV quizmasters, Norman Mailer, health-food nutsiness), the incongruity game played in the same alley with Celebrity Bowling. Apple is not a people person. He needs to lean on the mythic echoes of a pre-existing name, face, image--even if he risks a cheap-trickster label. Twice the gamble pays off in gold: the title story (the oranging is old Howard Johnson's roofing effect) and a memoir by Sonny "Mammy" Williams, donut-frying "sidekick" to an adolescent footballer named G. R. Ford. With powerhouse leading men to forge the vital reality-connections, Apple is free not only to develop his themes under adequate cover but also to create, in each of the tales, a man or woman Friday who is realer, richer, and more important than any myth-man. Condition: Good.
Keywords: Norman Mailer, Vasirin Kefirovsky, Alvarado, Gas Stations, Real Estate, Patty-Cake, Vegetable, America, Oranging, Yogurt, Noon, Gerald Ford, Howard Johnson
ISBN: 0553109928
[Book #88521]
Price: $125.00