Amazon.com lists for sale two copies of my novel Bluebirds of Impossible Paradise at prices hovering around $100 each. I'd happily pay that and more for a pristine bound copy. In fact, I've written so several times to the sellers listed there with no response. On the frontispiece of my own copy in manuscript form is the following book description: In the 1970's there was a brief interlude wherein at least some of our society associated sex more with pleasure than with sin or sickness. Bluebirds of Impossible Paradises is the story of one heterosexual woman's relationships, often with gay and bisexual men. Nothing as quirky as foot fetishism or fat phobia, Thea's particular predilection leads her down many byways, so to speak, in search of good sex, love, and maybe even happiness.

I originally wrote the book in 1984 while I was recovering from a failed romance with a bisexual man...several, actually. The book was both exercise and exorcism. After I wrote it I put it away on a shelf to gather dust. Some years later I was asked by a publisher if I had anything to show her. I blew off the dust, handed over the manuscript, and made some revisions along lines she suggested. Plans were made to publish the book but they came a cropper. The book was never published. After a few subsequent waltzes around town with an agent who found the book personally shocking but gave it a game try, the manuscript was returned to me, unclaimed, and went back on my dusted shelf.

How the book got onto to Amazon.com I can assume was via advance publicity by the changeable publisher. But how two copies exist for sale is a complete mystery. Acquire one or both copies and present them to me and I promise a handsome commission. I'd settle for a plausible explanation of the ad, if someone has one.

January 26, 2008

Unpublished Novel Mystery Update

 Curioser and curioser.  Reading the above blog entry a book dealer contacted me to say that another rare book dealer in the U.K. had a copy off <b>Bluebirds of Impossible Paradises</b> for sale for $25, a much better deal.  Since, as I've said, the book does not exist except in manuscript form, it's a rare book indeed at a very good price.

I contacted the dealer in the U.K., told him the story, and was delighted to hear back from him.  (I have never heard back from the Amazon.com sellers porporting to have copies for $100 each.) This guy said it must have been a mistake by his rep, apologised, and signed off.

 I'm none the wiser.  What kind of mistake can a rep make in selling a nonexistent book? I still have no explanation.