New York: Random House, 1974. Very Good/Very Good. New York: Random House, 1974. First Edition number line ending in "2" in keeping with publisher's identification methods at the time. Octavo. 245 pp. Printed dust jacket with "$5.95" price present. Blue and green boards stamped in copper and green.

Dust jacket with chip to top of front joint, scrape to bottom of same, and short closed tear to bottom of rear panel near spine. Boards show light shelfwear with a touch of fading along bottom edge. Binding is sound and pages unmarked. Very Good.

Synopsis

The 158-Pound Marriage, author John Irving's third published novel, revolves around an unidentified narrator, a college professor, and a mediocre novelist. The narrator met his wife Utch, an orphaned survivor of WWII, in Vienna while doing research. They are a relatively happy couple; their family rounded out by two children. At a faculty party, they meet Severin Winter, a Viennese-born professor and coach of the college wrestling team, and his wife, Edith. The couple's interests (Edith is an aspiring fiction writer, and Severin has a commonality with Utch's upbringing in Austria) and resulting infatuations between the couples lead to after-dinner partner-swapping. At first, the swinging goes smoothly, but eventually, uneven feelings and obsessions throw the couples off track. The title, The 158-Pound Marriage , refers to the 158-pound weight class in wrestling, which Severin, the coach, feels is the most competitive. The book is small, only 176 pages, compared to Irving's later weighty tomes, like the 610 page The World According to Garp ( 1978) and The Cider House Rules (1985), which is 973 pages.

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Details

Bookseller: Capitol Hill Books, ABAA (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #: 27706
Title: The 158-Pound Marriage
Author: John Irving
Book Condition: Used - Very Good
Jacket Condition: Very Good
Quantity Available: 1
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0394484142
ISBN 13: 9780394484143
Publisher: Random House
Place of Publication: New York
Date Published: 1974

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Glossary

Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:

Spine: The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
Number Line: A series of numbers appearing on the copyright page of a book, where the lowest number generally indicates the printing of that...
First Edition: In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
Jacket: Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
Octavo: Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
Shelfwear: Minor wear resulting from a book being place on, and taken from a bookshelf, especially along the bottom edge.