Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me.

FARINA, Richard.

$40,000.00

Item Number: 141590

New York: Random House, 1966.

First edition of the author and songwriter’s first novel, warmly praised by his friend Thomas Pynchon; the only novel published in Fariña’s lifetime, as he tragically died in a motorcycle accident two days after its publication. Octavo, original half green cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “G – Recognize any of these events. We had fun. Dick.” The likely recipient, Richard Gillespie, was a close personal friend and colleague of both Richard Fariña and Thomas Pynchon at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The three shared the same residence and Gillespie and Pynchon attended a course together entirely dedicated to James Joyce’s Ulysses (Schaub, Playing Bridge with Thomas Pynchon). The inscription in red pencil was likely made prior to Fariña’s book signing at the Thunderbird book store in Carmel, California on April 30th 1966 (the few copies he signed there were done in ink) whereafter, later that same day and only two days after the novel’s publication, he tragically died in a motorcycle accident. Near fine in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by Eric Von Schmidt. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. Exceptionally rare, with no other signed copies traced in auction records; a 1960s American counter-culture classic signed only days prior to Fariña’s tragic death.

Richard Farina’s close friend Thomas Pynchon enthusiastically endorsed this, his first and only published novel: “It’s been a while since I’ve read anything quite so groovy, quite such a joy from beginning to end. This book comes on like the Hallelujah Chorus done by 200 kazoo players with perfect pitch… In spinning his yarn he spins the reader as well, dizzily into a microcosm that manages to be hilarious, chilling, sexy, profound, maniacal, beautiful and outrageous all at the same time.” A respected singer-songwriter as well as author, Fariña dedicated the novel to his wife Mimi, sister of Joan Baez. Tragically, he died in a motorcycle accident on his way to the publication party.