The Fat Man In History (SIGNED)
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: First Australian Edition
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear
Pages: Yellowed
Markings: Signed
Condition remarks: See below.
A sharp and darkly comic work of speculative fiction, The Fat Man in History presents a collection of short stories set in unsettling, dystopian near-futures where the ordinary and the absurd collide with quiet menace. Peter Carey constructs worlds where fat men are treated as political enemies of a revolutionary state, salesmen peddle impossible dreams, and the boundaries between reality and surrealism dissolve with unnerving ease. Each story uncovers the anxieties lurking beneath the surface of modern society — consumerism, power, identity, and the fragility of human dignity — rendered with precise, inventive prose. Carey's tone is simultaneously satirical and melancholic, illustrating how the grotesque can serve as a mirror for deeply human fears. This debut collection announced one of Australia's most distinctive literary voices, one capable of transforming the mundane into the profoundly strange. A highly desirable flat-signed first edition of Peter Carey's debut short story collection, published by University of Queensland Press in 1974 and now quite scarce in any condition. Boards show minor wear with light rubbing to edges and gentle corner bumping; binding remains firm and square. The dustjacket presents a faded spine with light chipping, also to the spine. Both endpapers show minor issues: the front endpaper is adhered to the front pastedown, and the rear carries light residual glue. Pages have yellowed with age, as is typical for this period of Australian paperstock, but the text block itself is clean throughout. A significant item for collectors of Australian literature.
Author: Peter Carey
Format: Hardback
Published: 1974, University of Queensland Press
Edition: First Australian Edition
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear
Pages: Yellowed
Markings: Signed
Condition remarks: See below.
A sharp and darkly comic work of speculative fiction, The Fat Man in History presents a collection of short stories set in unsettling, dystopian near-futures where the ordinary and the absurd collide with quiet menace. Peter Carey constructs worlds where fat men are treated as political enemies of a revolutionary state, salesmen peddle impossible dreams, and the boundaries between reality and surrealism dissolve with unnerving ease. Each story uncovers the anxieties lurking beneath the surface of modern society — consumerism, power, identity, and the fragility of human dignity — rendered with precise, inventive prose. Carey's tone is simultaneously satirical and melancholic, illustrating how the grotesque can serve as a mirror for deeply human fears. This debut collection announced one of Australia's most distinctive literary voices, one capable of transforming the mundane into the profoundly strange. A highly desirable flat-signed first edition of Peter Carey's debut short story collection, published by University of Queensland Press in 1974 and now quite scarce in any condition. Boards show minor wear with light rubbing to edges and gentle corner bumping; binding remains firm and square. The dustjacket presents a faded spine with light chipping, also to the spine. Both endpapers show minor issues: the front endpaper is adhered to the front pastedown, and the rear carries light residual glue. Pages have yellowed with age, as is typical for this period of Australian paperstock, but the text block itself is clean throughout. A significant item for collectors of Australian literature.