$250
Estimate: $500 - $800
Auction: February 18, 2021 10:00:00 AM EDT
New York: Horizon Press, (1981). First edition. 8vo. 256 pp. Inscribed by Butler on front free endpaper. Original quarter blue cloth over green paper-covered boards, stamped in gilt. A near-fine copy.
Butler's first book, with a fantastic association, inscribed: "For Liza--/I hope you don't mind/my having written about/your life like this. I/did change the nationality,/though to protect you./Best wishes,/Robert Olen Butler". Presumably Liza, whose identitiy is unknown, was the inspiration for Lanh, the novel's female protagonist. If so, this inscription is the only known evidence. The story centers on an American Army deserter who decides to stay on in Vietnam. Butler himself served in Vietnam from 1969-71, reaching the rank of sergeant in the Army Military Intelligence Corps. After a series of jobs and careers, he began publishing his own writing. "The Alleys of Eden" was his first effort. He would win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1993.