The BURIED Book Club discussion

Poet Russell Edson himself is by no means buried. The Tunnel: Selected Poems has 854 ratings and 50 reviews to date on Goodreads. However, his first of two novels, Gulping's Recital , definitely meets the criteria for a buried book -- only 2 ratings and 1 review (mine).

Gulping's Recital has an interesting history. Excerpts from the novel, alongside works by such notables as Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Diane di Prima, Robert Creeley, LeRoi Jones, and John Rechy, appeared in The Moderns: An Anthology of New World Writing, edited by Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones at the time) and published by Corinth Books in 1963. (This was a year prior to the New Directions publication of Edson's breakthrough collection of prose poems, The Very Thing That Happens.) In the "Notes on the Authors" section at the back of the book, it stated "Jonathan Williams' Jargon Press is scheduled to bring out the complete Gulping's Recital."

For reasons unkown, the Jargon Press edition never materialized and it wasn't until 21 years later that Gulping's Recital was finally published. I contacted the printer/designer of the Guignol Books edition who provided me with the following information: Although the copyright page lists three separate editions (paperback, hardcover, and leather-bound limited edition of 26 signed copies), only the paperback was ever produced. (125 copies, if that, he estimated.) The book's distribution deal fell through, the printer was forced to close up shop for financial reasons, and the original publisher went out of business shortly after.

I just launched a Kickstarter to help finance the publication of the first-ever new edition of this seriously offbeat baby:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

Just posted my review Gulping's Recital: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Hope you enjoy! : )