{"product_id":"2026100011174-secondhand-dreaming-of-babylon","title":"Dreaming Of Babylon","description":"\u003cp\u003eEdition: 1st uk ed.,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Fair\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Worn\/faded, no tears\u003cbr\u003ePages: Yellowed\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: stained book block. price clipped dj. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSan Francisco, 1942: C. Card is the worst private detective in the city — broke, dreamy, and constitutionally incapable of keeping his mind on the job, forever drifting into vivid fantasies of ancient Babylon where he is a heroic warrior rather than a man who can't afford bullets for his gun. When a bizarre case lands in his lap involving a stolen corpse from the city morgue, rival gangsters, and a femme fatale with a very unusual request, Card must somehow navigate a treacherous criminal underworld while his imagination wages a relentless war against his concentration.\n\nRichard Brautigan's Dreaming of Babylon is a wickedly comic deconstruction of the hard-boiled detective novel, wielding the conventions of Chandler and Hammett with gleeful, surrealist irreverence. Brautigan's prose is spare, deadpan, and shot through with a melancholic absurdism that transforms the noir genre into something entirely his own — a meditation on escapism, failure, and the seductive power of fantasy. For readers who thought they knew what a detective story could be, Card's hapless odyssey through fog-drenched San Francisco will leave them questioning everything — and laughing all the way.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50573053853915,"sku":"2026100011174-SECONDHAND","price":30.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/318facdf-a1ca-4bcd-a981-a90b39dc8d4a.png?v=1791167712","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100011174-secondhand-dreaming-of-babylon","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}