The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart

First edition. Tall 8vo. Pp. xvi, 200, [3]. Quarter-bound maroon cloth, lettered in gilt, over orange paper-covered boards. Jacket design by Allison Saltzman, with front cover photograph by Nan Park (priced $23.95 to front flap). Stated First Edition to copyright page, with dropped '1' in the sequence of numbers, as was common practice by Random House at the time (subsequent printings dropping the First Edition statement altogether). 100,000 first printing.

A collection of short stories, a work of "mostly fiction," book-ended with semi-autobiographical recollections of a failed yet compelling marriage set in the Deep South during the civil rights movement. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for her novel The Color Purple. "[An] entrancing mix of memoir and short story... close to perfection." –The Observer