Book cover: "Riches and Fame and the Pleasures of Sense"

• Title: Riches and Fame and the Pleasures of Sense
• Author: Kathy Black. I can't find any biographical information about her online, a search that isn't helped by how common her name is.
• Cover illustration: Gail Burwen (1945-2017), Cloud Studio. Most of her cover illustrations were for science-fiction books.
• Cover design: R.D. Scudellari (1933-2022). The Library of America website notes: "One of the foremost book designers of his generation, Scudellari created the distinctive Library of America series jacket in the early 1980s, bringing in Swedish calligrapher Gun Larson for a hand-drawn, artisanal touch that would distinguish each book." Another remembrance, by Janet Odgis, can be found on Odgis.com.
• Back cover photographer: Ellen McNeilly
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (a Borzoi book)
• Back cover price: $3.50
• Year: 1971
• Pages: 151
• Format: Hardcover with no dust jacket
• Typography: Set by Fototronic CRT in the Garamond typeface
• Dimensions: 5½ inches by 8¼ inches
• From the "Prefatory Statement": This book forced itself on me while I was trying to write something else, and it probably still bears the marks of the reluctance with which a great part of it was composed. After completing my shopping at the A&P (1947), I determined to apply the categories for shelving which I had learned there to the problem of the novel. (The statement also mentions and thanks the Lower Merion school board. Was Black from Pennsylvania?)
• Opening paragraph: We've been pretty happy, Susan and I said George settling down into his sofa and smiling. the room was dusky at six o'clock in summer. David Brinkley was talking on the tv with his mouth closed.
• Random passage from the middle #1: I interviewed Stephanie while she was putting egg cups on her wall. They were pink purple and salmon-colored plastic egg boxes she had stolen from the supermarket.
• Random passage from the middle #2: Paul says that making love is the most overwhelming activity in the world, I say, Yes. (Since if I had said no he might think I didn't like sex and you can't have anyone thinking that about you. You would rather have them think you are stupid. Sometimes I tell men I don't like sex but that's wicked, like telling your father you don't like money.)
• Random passage from the middle #3: Andrey had curly blond hair blue eyes and was Polish. It was a relief to realize that you could live in Israel even if you disapproved of the government policy to the point of being sick from it. You could help transform Israel into a socialist country and try to make it recognize the Palestinian people as humans with a right to their lands, he said, as a people wanting self-determination just as much as the Jewish people wanted self-determination [...] She had seen lots of death, bombings and fires she said and that's why the Israeli army was necessary, to prevent things like that, and yes she said reprisals did lead only to more violence but what then was the solution? she said.
• Online reviews and ratings: Almost nothing.
• Best (only?) place for insight: A fascinating 2023 article on The Neglected Books Page notes that Riches and Fame and the Pleasures of Sense was part of a short-lived early 1970s series by Alfred A. Knopf: "dust jacketless, shiny-covered hardbacks that championed the work of young American writers playing around with fictional forms and styles — a series referred to as 'Borzoi puppies' after Knopf’s legendary Borzoi Books." There were only eight books total published before the series was abandoned after 1972. All eight books are reviewed in the article and this is an excerpt of what it states about Black's effort: "[The book] is about a Barnard graduate named Betty who’s trying to get a book called Riches and Fame and the Pleasures of Sense published — that is, once she’s written it. In search of material, she interviews friends and old classmates and spends time in Paris with her boyfriend Arnold. The book is filled with snippets. Snippets of the interviews, of Betty’s notebooks, of a play she wrote in elementary school, of letters to editors, of thoughts on such topics as 'Modern Youth Searches for an Identity.' ... All this would quickly grow insufferable were it not for Kathy Black’s winning acknowledgement that since we’re following along with her wanderings, she owes the reader a chuckle or accurate insight every page or so." From my perspective, I add only, and rather lamely, that Black's writing style reminded me at times of Richard Brautigan. And that was before I even got the mention of mayonnaise.