original Lot 49 paperback

[Jeffrey L. Meikle]

Whoa, John, that tacky psychedelic paisley go-go-girl paperback of Lot 49
is what introduced some of us to TRP in the first place.  You can't imagine
the crushingly dull realist covers gracing the contemporary paperback
editions of such worthies as Mailer, Barth, and Updike.  And here, finally,
for all of us already as paranoid as that 50s chic Oedipa becomes by book's
end, was clearly a writer who was "with it."  Sometimes you CAN judge a
book by its cover.  Especially now, in the chill 90s,that tacky cover
reminds us that in fact ol' Tom WAS a "60s novelist," whatever that means.
Come on, John, you've got to admit...the tacky humor of "I Want to Kiss
Your Feet" and radio station KCUF is as "60s" as that cover.  And its pop
exuberance more accurately expresses the novel's pop-culture surface than
do the ponderously portentous covers of the paperbacks that followed
(Zener-card seance, Echo Motel, etc.).  What do you want for 75 cents
anyway?  Sorry to foam at the mouth, but that edition of Lot 49 won me over
to the master's paranoid vision back in 1969--and made me so much a devotee
of the Word as opposed to mere surface appearance that I foolishly didn't
snap up the whole stack of first edition hardbacks remaindered at my
college bookstore for a dollar a pop.  We're all prisoners of our time--if
truth be told, I'll bet ol' Tom himself liked that intricate paisleyed
cover, maybe even had a hand in designing it to suggest some pattern we've
by now, too many turnings beyond that time's unique potentiality, lost the
chance ever to unravel. Sorry to ramble but you've hit a nostalgic
nerve...no hard feelings I hope...

Cheers,
Jeff Meikle