
Amazons. An Intimate Memoir by the First Woman Ever to Play in the National Hockey League
New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1980. Uncorrected Proof. Octavo, publisher's photo-illustrated stiff paper wraps.
Uncorrected proof of American fiction titan Don DeLillo’s pseudonymously published fictional memoir. Co-written contemporaneously with his National Book Award-winning White Noise (1985) with Sue Brick, a coworker from his days as an adman at Ogilvy & Mather, the book centers around "Cleo Birdwell" as she narrates her inaugural season as the first female player for the New York Rangers. DeLillo’s stunt paid off: the book was a major financial success—he nearly doubled his income—and it inoculated a wider readership with his antic, postmodern prose style. After he earned a reputation as one of America’s greatest satirists with the breakout success of White Noise, DeLillo swiftly tried to delete the title from his official bibliography and to this day refuses to grant reprint permission. He finally, if slyly, acknowledged he authored the book 20 years post-publication, in an October 2020 interview with the New York Times: "[Interviewer:] I think I just got a scoop. I don’t know if you’ve ever publicly acknowledged that you wrote "Amazons." [DeLillo:] I probably did, somewhere or other. [Laughs.] Maybe to an interviewer from Thailand." Light edgewear and soiling to wraps. Very good. Item #3232
$50.00