OTHER WOMEN and FRESH GIRLS. Inscribed by the Author to W.P. Kinsella.
OTHER WOMEN, Toronto: Random House of Canada. [1995]. Hardcover, First Edition, first printing. Inscribed by the author on the half-title page: "To Bill / with affection and anticipation / Evelyn / "nobody, not even the rain, / has such small hands" / (ee cummings)". In addition, a small handmade colour erotic drawing (artist unknown, possibly Lau) is loosely laid in, along with an invitation to the Random House book launch reading & Book Signing event for this title, held at The Law Courts Inn, 800 Smithe St, Wed, Oct 6, 1995. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket [along with] OTHER WOMEN. London: Minerva. [1995]. First UK edition. Original colour pictorial wrappers (trade paperback original). Inscribed by the author on the title page "for Bill, / with much love - / Evelyn / PS. Garlic gotta swim..." A fine copy in wrappers [along with] FRESH GIRLS AND OTHER STORIES. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994. First paperback edition. Original pictorial wrappers (trade paperback). Inscribed by the author on the half-title leaf "for Bill / with that "overflowing / heart feeling - / Evelyn". A fine copy in wrappers. Together, three volumes, each inscribed by Evelyn Lau to her then lover author W.P. Kinsella. These are rather remarkable copies. Item #314560
¶ Born on July 2, 1971, Evelyn Yee-Fun Lau was an honour student when she ran away from her restrictive Chinese Canadian parents at age 14 and became a teenage prostitute and drug user. Her teenage memoir of two years on the streets, Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid, received much publicity and became a CBC movie. At 20 she won the Milton Acorn Memorial 1990 People's Poetry Award for You Are Not Who You Claim, her first book of poetry. She has also been nominated for a Governor General's Award for Poetry for Oedipal Dreams and she received a Canadian Authors Association Award for Most Promising Writer.
In 1995 Lau began a relationship with write W.P. Kinsella - he was 60 and she was 24. After their break-up, Lau published an article in Vancouver magazine called 'Me and W.P.', which led to a lawsuit from Kinsella. The writers had signed a pact giving one another permission to write about their relationship, but Kinsella alleged that Lau's portrait of him was malicious and erroneous. Kinsella was thirty-six years older than Lau, and the relationship had ended after two years. Lau didn’t accuse him of assault, but the fallout from her essay was one early sign that Canadian women publicly discussing troubling aspects of their sex and dating lives could find themselves in court. Kinsella, who is now deceased, sued Lau, saying in his statement of claim “that he’d been humiliated and embarrassed by references to his sexual abilities, financial aptitude and social skills,” the Vancouver Sun reported in 1999.
Price (CAD): $500.00