My First Thirty Years by Gertrude Beasley

My First Thirty Years

Gertrude Beasley
Claire Van Vliet, woodcuts
Larry McMurtry, afterword

The Book Club of Texas 1989

Softcover limited edition, one of 500 copies. Fine condition. Stiff blue wrappers, white pastedown title on spine, hand-sewn binding. Includes a booklet of the book review "A Texas Schoolmarm" by H. L. Menken, and additional leaflets from publisher. Surely one of the most ferocious opening lines I've ever read: "Thirty years ago, I lay in the womb of a woman, conceived in a sexual act of rape, being carried during the pre-natal period by an unwilling and rebellious mother, finally bursting from the womb only to be tormented in a family whose members I despised or pitied, and brought into association with people whom I should never have chosen." A stunner, both in content and design.