Titbits Are Go!
On a Book, Just Delivered
The physical form of books is among life’s little pleasures. Exhibit A: Betrayed by Rita Hayworth by Manuel Puig, McNally Editions, first edition paperback, 2022. Originally published in Spanish as La traición de Rita Hayworth by Jorge Álvarezin in 1968, the first novel by the Argentine postmodernist most known for Kiss of the Spider Woman (1976) has long been in print in English but only recently joined McNally Editions: “McNally Editions is devoted to rediscovering books from off the beaten path.” The inside cover is stately in matte cadet blue and deep orange, the title, author and translator in a ritzy font suggestive of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Other cover text is in Courier, as if hot off the typewriter, including a lengthy quote from the novel: “ . . . I brush my hair till it looks like silk, so dancing in a nightclub you can throw your head back and it’s sexy falling down your shoulders . . . ” This modest yet masterly work of design is only partially covered by the low-cut dust jacket, the front of which is dominated by a black-and-white photograph of the lower half of Rita Hayworth’s face — the Gilda (1946) actress smiles, her lips only slightly parted — the back tagged with praise from American author David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest, 1996): “Manuel Puig . . . could make dialogue do anything.” Having read many of Puig’s novels, I couldn’t agree more, but I love this one already and I have yet to read a page of it.
Note: I wrote this for Medium.com. If you are reading this on another platform, it has been pirated. I quit the Medium Partner Program, so I’m not doing this for money. It is nice, however, to know someone’s reading, so please clap or comment to let me know somebody’s out there. Gladius adhuc lucet.
