S8: Lightnin’

At first this Biblio-Mat book looked like a run of the mill biography but it turns out to be much more interesting.

The nickname is a bit of a misnomer. Really.

Title: Lightnin’

The cover itself gives away an air of vintage – not quite antiquarian, but distinctively dated in a charming way. Indeed it was published in 1920, and on thick stock with a photo cover to boot. Written by Frank Bacon, Lightnin’ had more than meets the eye.

$1.75 is steep!

Mmmmm...bacon...

The Biblio-Mat doesn’t give out fiction often, so when it does it’s always interesting. Lightnin’, as it turns out, is a fictional biography based on Lightnin’ Bill Jones, the eponymous character from Bacon and Winchell Smith’s play “Lightnin’”, a crafty old man in the not-so-wild west. 

Reading through the first chapter, it seems to be farcical view on small town life, but really, anything written back then seems like a farcical view of small town life. The best part of this book is the inclusion of photographs from the stage play.

It must've been extremely successful.

See, total misnomer.

Also interesting is back inner flap of the dustjacket. Not only does it have an ad for Harper’s Magazine (only $4.00 a year!) but it also has an unclipped book re-ordering coupon, which I rarely see.  

Tempted to mail it to the publisher.

Perhaps one day I'll end up reading through the whole thing but for the time being, this lightning will stay bottled on the shelf.