This book belongs on everybody's list of the top ten Appalachian novels. It is a novel, informed greatly by the author's own experience growing up middle class in Buckhannon, West Virginia. No book I have read provides more insight into the chasm between the World War II generation of the author's (and my own) father and our own Vietnam War generation. It was the only American novel on the New York Times list of the year's best and was on their bestseller list. "A beautifully patterned novel . . . an enduring literary achievement . . . astonishing."—The New York Times. "Machine Dreams, in its wisdom and its compassionate, utterly unsentimental rendering of the American condition, will rank as one of the great books of [the] decade. Jayne Anne Phillips is a blessing."—Robert Stone.
New York: Washington Square Press, a 1991 paperback of a 1984 release. Trade paperback.