Wurlitzer’s “Quake”
Why the hell can I not find a single copy of one of my favorite novellas from the 1970s, Rudolph Wurlitzer’s Quake? I’ve looked everywhere: Amazon, Powell’s, E Bay and the bevy of online used book sellers they represent. Nada. It’s as if the book has been permanently pulled from circulation, even in remainders. Someone borrowed the only copy I owned and the rat bastard never returned it.
Wurlitzer is a talented and literary screenwriter and novelist (Two Lane Blacktop, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid) and is a member of that Wurlitzer family — you know, the organ people. Quake was published by E.P. Dutton in 1974. It is Wurlitzer’s violent, forlorn, and at times poetic vision of Los Angeles and its post-apocalyptic landscape after The Big One finally hits. From rudywurlitzer.org:
The narrator of Rudolph Wurlitzer’s extraordinary new novel, Quake, is a drifter, having arrived in Los Angeles from New York. “I wasn’t above panhandling, spiritual or otherwise.” The first tremor is followed shortly by another and still another, freezing the bizarre occupants of the motel into sharp relief. The narrator drifts off away from the motel, is commandeered by a group of rescue workers and almost gets trapped in a crumbling building. He is then seized by a marauding neighborhood vigilante group at war with other neighborhood armies, forced to strip and then march naked out of the city. Unable to surrender to the idea that he is a victim of other people’s terror, he watches as the quake liberates people’s emotions, forces the truth that is witness to disaster. A powerful and absorbing novel, Quake is a testament to man’s ability to struggle for life with humor and courage.
ISBN: 0-525-1 8660-3 0972
Ah-ha! An ISBN number. Maybe I can find it after all.
Quake, incidentally, inspired a Trace story for 8763 Wonderland back in April ‘06 titled Feral.
You can find “Quake” and his other books at Alibris: http://www.alibris.com/
…
YES,
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?author=Wurlitzer&title=Quake
One cheap one and and one expensive one. Hurry.
Alibris totally slipped my mind; I’ve become accustomed to shopping through the multitude of book vendors who have E Bay storefronts.
Reason number 2176, why never to lend out books you like!
The worst part, S, is I can’t recall who I loaned it to. I’m not in the habit, though, of loaning out favorite books.
Kitty and John, Looking at Alibris I see that it was Midnight Classics that reissued the book in ‘95. They also did a reissue of a couple of OOP Horace McCoy novels. Seemed like they were basing their business model on the old Black Sparrow Press … kinda.