Inherent Vice: Pink Fade

[Robin Landseadel]

Got my copy of Inherent Vice at Borders today. Place looked like a  
rummage sale. There was no discount. The clerk told me :"I guess it's  
not an important book."

The inside flaps for the cover are sprayed pink, the kind of pink fade  
you find on remaindered books. Not all of them, mind you. Not all  
publishers use that signifier on a book headed for the $5 bin, but  
enough. If you've ever worked or obsessively shopped at one of the big  
box book stores, you'll know what I talking about.

I've always seriously wondered if Pynchon had it written into his  
contract that the first edition QP of Gravity's Rainbow be  
deliberately under-glued along the spine, thus guaranteeing that all  
copies of that edition would fall apart about two thirds the way in.