Tracking down My Sister Eileen

Cathy Seipp has a wonderful post about Ruth McKenney and her book, My Sister Eileen, a favorite of mine as a kid. I still remember the old paperback edition we had lying around the house; it was probably already more than 20 years old when I picked it up. I must have read it a half a dozen times until it finally fell apart.

Yet her work remains out of print, which frustrated me for years. But then came the used-book treasure troves Alibris, Bookfinders, Abebooks et al, and now everything old is new again.

Why do once-popular books go out of print? Who knows? I suspect publishers no longer consider them relevant. Yet My Sister Eileen inspired two movies and a Broadway musical that's currently enjoying a successful revival.

Another wonderful book now out of print is 7-1/2 cents, the basis for the musical The Pajama Game. I read it a few years ago--another old paperback that someone discarded--and really enjoyed it. They seem not to write good middlebrow fiction anymore, or at least not to publish it.