I picked up this 1972 printing of Joe Gores' A Time of Predators a couple weeks ago, but I didn't really look at it until yesterday. I knew it was ugly, and looked like the cover of some third rate horror novel, but I didn't stop and really look at it. When I did I was surprised to see that the artist had drawn the man's hands with the hands backwards. The thumbs are on the outside, and there's just no way I can think of that it would be possible to get a hand in that position. Who let that slip through unnoticed?
Definitional Disagreements
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Earlier this week, *The Washington Post* released its “10 best mystery
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5 comments:
Maybe it's the hand of two different men?
Hmmm... yeah, unless it's either two different men, OR, if it's one guy and he's facing her, wrapping his arms around to reach her back. If he's got his chest to hers, it makes perfact sense.
Seth,
that occurred to me, but then there would have to be a guy in the picture.
And upon further review, I think the only way it could work would be if it was two men, each standing off to the side and pulling with their left hands. If that's what the artist was trying to convey, he sure did it awkwardly, because the angle of both arms makes it seem like both men would, in that case, have to be kneeling.
Forget the part about, both of them using their left hands, which is, of course, impossible. It's early, what can I say.
More disturbing, I think, is the quote from the Mystery Writers of America.
While it makes sense (if you think about it momentarily), it strikes the eye as just plain wrong.
"Best First Novel Of The Year."
Does that mean that Gores was the first writer of every other writer out there to get his novel published in 1972 (yes, I realize A Time Of Preators was originally published in 1969)?
Or does it mean what it was intended to mean, that being that this was Gores' first novel and it was the best of that year?
Sends shivers down the spine, I tell you.
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