Softcover. Pomeroy OH, Carpenter Press, 1st, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 236 pages, illustrated by David Lynas. Includes numerous black and white photos of attractive female nudes. Ribald adventure in the style of Henry Miller. Johnson's second novel to be published, though the third to be written, takes up the whole issue of who gets published and why. It takes as its main subject the uproarious literary politics of the late 60's, when the government first set up the National Endowment for the Arts, and fools and crooks and serious editors asked for money to keep small-scale literary operations afloat in a sea of conglomerate-owned houses and declining public taste. One of the best parts is the description of the first COSMEP (Committee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers) meeting. The two main characters, a truck driver named Gasserpod Peasporr Slocum, and his mentor, a small magazine editor, Ellis Schoenobatic, take us on a marvelous tour of the USA, into all the current scenes -- political, artistic, sexual -- and finally back to Sausalito and the girl they left behind. Clean copy.
