I am a day late

[Mark Kohut]

to posting a happy birthday salute to Gravity's Rainbow, published 46 years
ago yesterday, February 28, 1973.

A masterpiece came across the Times Book Review skyline.

I can almost remember it like it was yesterday. (probably, mostly, a
recreated memory)

I was interviewing for a job in Connecticut and visited a Waldenbooks where
two hardcover copies
were hanging out low on a back wall.....I did not yet even know there was a
paperback,---I think that store must have
mistakenly gotten hardcovers--- so I treated myself to a hardcover....

Back at my Pittsburgh bookselling job, I saw and then bought a paperback to
read ruggedly. The book needed that.

Dear Gentle Reader, I got the job.

And did a window featuring it  much later when it won the National Book
Award anyway. (Without Pynchon
accepting that award). I think the window sold one copy, to a Frenchwoman,
showing me in person how
literary prizes matter in France.