All Fall Down

First Edition.
IN EVERY DISTRICT there is one house that is special-be-cause it is haunted, or because crazy people are living in it, or because an act of violence took place there. On Seminary Street the special house is the one where the Williams family lives. Berry-berry, the wild older son, has disappeared. Fourteen-year-old Clinton, who has always idolized his older brother, refuses to go to school and spends his time compulsively recording everything he hears in a series of notebooks. Friendless and lonely, Clinton dreams of the time when he will be old enough to Join Berry-berry, while his parents exist in a state of suspension, waiting for Berry-berry’s return..
Then, one evening, Berry-berry suddenly appears a young man who
moves in an aura of mystery and suppressed violence. The explosive effect of his reappearance on his parents, and especially on the worshipping Clinton, provides the substance of this disturbing and original novel.
All Fall Down is more than ample confirmation of the power and brilliance promised by Mr Herlihy’s collection of short stories, The Sleep of Baby Filbertson.
Its publication in America was a literary event; and Tennessee Williams has predicted that Mr Herlihy will become ‘the most important new writer since McCullers’. The story is now being filmed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.