Night People by Barry Gifford [FIRST EDITION] 1992

Night People by Barry Gifford

FIRST EDITION [1992] GROVE PRESS

Hardcover with dust jacket in excellent condition.   Near mint and unread with some minor trace shelf wear to jacket.

Big Betty Stalcup and Miss Cutie Early, two lesbian ex-convicts, preach the gospel of Miss Jesus our Holy Mother as they search for one redeemable man--and leave in their wake the severed heads of the irredeemable. Beatifica Brown, a devout abortionist, is visited by the spirit of abolitionist John Brown, who counsels her to adopt his methods in fighting the anti-abortion zealots of Louisiana. Dallas and Dilys Salt, brother and sister rival evangelists and the parents of a 14-year-old with Down's syndrome, preach their respectively pro-life and pro-choice messages from the pulpits of the Church on the One Hand and the Church on the Other Hand. Fourteen-year-old Marble Lesson, who survives a bus wreck and an attempted rape, defines her philosophy in letters to Jesus. Gifford delights in improbable names: this volume is filled with characters known as the brothers Mano and Boca Demente, and places dubbed Egypt City, Fla., and Checkerboard Chucky's Change of Heart Bar. He writes with clarity and great economy, imbuing these weird and unsavory vignettes with an engaging lyricism. And the ever-present black humor buoys the narrative without trivializing either the characters or their plights.