The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye

The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye (1996) is Lethem's first story collection, gathering seven stories that range across science fiction, noir, and literary fantasy. The collection is uneven by design as Lethem was exploring his range. Two of the stories are dystopian. "The Happy Man" follows a suburban father who periodically crosses over into a bureaucratically organized hell and returns changed. It's a bleak and darkly funny meditation on the impossibility of normalcy. "The Hardened Criminals" imagines a prison where criminals have literally been incorporated into the building's walls, serving their sentences as architectural material.  Signed and inscribed by Lethem on the title page with a drawing of an eyeball: "For Mika Babcock / All best regards / Jonathan."

Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996. ISBN: 0151001804. #10256.
Fine in fine dust jacket.