Lowell Limpett and Two Stories

New York: PublicAffairs, 2001. xvi, 126 pages; 22 cm. Tight, clean copy. Stated First Edition. Fine DJ. A fine copy of the first printing. "Lowell Limpett is a journalist at the end of his career. His voice is melancholy, honest, and wonderfully compelling about the beauty of a clean lead, the death of old friends, and what we read when we read the news. As always with the fictions of Just, Limpett's life is drawn from our times in a way that makes him as real as journalism itself, but with the shadings and the sense of mystery available only in the most subtle fiction. Wasps reintroduces the reader to Ward Just's Washington D. C., a place where husbands and wives try to hold onto their sense of self and each other amid the distractions of our imperial city. Melanie is the quiet, thoughtful, and private wife of an up-and-coming young member of the House of Representatives who has discovered that her skills and interests are curious though useful ones in Washington. When her husband asks her to step with him more emphatically onto the public stage, she has to examine her place in the city and her hopes for her life. With Born in His Time, we again enter a Washington where the temptations of work, success, and public display can rob a striver of confidence and dignity. 'Born' is still a young man when he is hired by one of the city's most prestigious law firms. The firm takes on a high-profile case, one that perhaps it shouldn't have, and Born is irrevocably changed by the experience." - Publisher.. 1st. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 8vo. Collectible.