Blood on the Dining-Room Floor
by Gertrude Stein
Published by Black Lizard, 1982
Rare
This 1982 Black Lizard edition presents Gertrude Stein's experimental detective novel, written in 1933 but unpublished during her lifetime. Based on mysterious deaths in the French countryside where Stein summered, the text transforms crime fiction conventions through her characteristic linguistic play and narrative fragmentation.
Blood on the Dining-Room Floor refuses traditional mystery novel structure—clues accumulate without resolving, suspects proliferate, and the narrator's voice slides between observation and speculation. Stein uses the detective genre as framework for exploring consciousness, memory, and how we construct meaning from ambiguous events. The result challenges readers to become detectives of the text itself.
Published by Black Lizard Books, the innovative mystery imprint founded by Creative Arts Book Company, this edition recognized Stein's work as proto-postmodern noir. The volume participates in 1980s critical reevaluation of Stein's full oeuvre, moving beyond her famous autobiography to appreciate her formal experiments across genres.
Publishing Details: Black Lizard Books (Creative Arts Book Company), Berkeley, California, 1982. Trade paperback. Introduction by John Herbert Gill.
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