{"product_id":"we-never-called-it-frisco-jed-perl-paperback","title":"We Never Called It Frisco -- Jed Perl, Paperback","description":"\u003cb\u003eA candid novel about the art, artists, and their tempestuous relationships in the countercultural movement of the 50's and 60's, by one of America's most celebrated art critics.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDuring intermission at a modern dance performance in San Francisco, esteemed and incorrigible cultural critic Marcia Lang collapses into a banquette and dies on the spot. Her lover, Burt, soon discovers that Marcia willed him her entire estate. His windfall includes her correspondence, her stilted redwood house in Marin County, and an incomplete draft of her unpublished memoir, \u003ci\u003eWe Never Called It Frisco\u003c\/i\u003e. As he processes Marcia's death alongside their cadre of Berkeley bohemians, Burt begins to reconstruct Marcia's work in progress as an elegiac collage for the friend he's lost and the city that found her. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn his first novel, Jed Perl guides his reader down the back alleys of a mid-century San Francisco populated with painters, puppeteers, paperback revolutionaries, and the writers like Marcia who determined their positions in the cultural ecosystem. Through energetic and immersive prose, \u003ci\u003eWe Never Called It Frisco\u003c\/i\u003e tests the structural limits of the novel as a site of reconstitution and remembrance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Jed Perl\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Coffee House Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/08\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 136\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.30lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.30h x 5.40w x 0.50d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781566897648\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 07\/15\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e 08\/01\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJed Perl\u003c\/b\u003e is a regular contributor to \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e. The poet John Ashbery has called him \"an almost solitary, essential voice,\" and a reviewer in \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e observed of his most recent essay collection, \u003ci\u003eMagicians and Charlatans\u003c\/i\u003e, that he \"may be the finest American critic at work today in any field.\" Perl was the art critic for \u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e for twenty years and a contributing editor at \u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e for a decade. Writing about his two-volume biography of the American sculptor Alexander Calder--\u003ci\u003eCalder: The Conquest of Time\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eCalder: The Conquest of Space\u003c\/i\u003e--the novelist Fran Lebowitz observed that \"all artists are critics, but very few critics are artists. Jed Perl is one of those few.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAmong Jed Perl's many books are \u003ci\u003eParis Without End: On French Art Since World War I\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eAntoine's Alphabet: Watteau and His World\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eEyewitness: Reports from an Art World in Crisis\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eAuthority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eNew Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a 2005 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Book. He is also the editor of \u003ci\u003eArt in America: 1945-1970\u003c\/i\u003e, a 900-page anthology published by the Library of America. He has written for \u003ci\u003eHarper's\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New Criterion\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Threepenny Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Yale Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSalmagundi\u003c\/i\u003e, and many other publications. He is the recipient of awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, the Leon Levy Biography Center at the City University of New York, and the Ingram-Merrill Foundation. He lives in New York City.","brand":"Jed Perl","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":68224311886052,"sku":"9781566897648","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0611\/9587\/8628\/files\/9781566897648.jpg?v=1794384186","url":"https:\/\/bookandmortar.com\/products\/we-never-called-it-frisco-jed-perl-paperback","provider":"BookandMortar","version":"1.0","type":"link"}