FREE delivery January 16 - 23. Details

Or fastest delivery January 16 - 17. Details

Select delivery location

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

$$348.64 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Ships from

GF Books, Inc.

Ships from

GF Books, Inc.

Sold by

GF Books, Inc.

Sold by

GF Books, Inc.

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt. You may receive a partial or no refund on used, damaged or materially different returns.

Read full return policy

Payment

Secure transaction

Payment

Secure transaction

We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more

Details

FREE delivery January 16 - 17. Details

Select delivery location

Used: Good | Details

Sold by Old New River Books

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Color:

To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Samuel R. Delany

Follow

Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders Paperback – April 17, 2012

by Samuel R. Delany (Author)

4.4 84 ratings

See all formats and editions

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$348.64","priceAmount":348.64,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"348","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"64","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"vovz9XfFAffFMuRzf93MqHL3bR4V2l1tIrXIyOVKDY5dYRG2rJbxUDvMvq5daNhC6Z2JkusyIeMq787fjb0N%2BKvsgYBQ1%2FT1F8Qwfu%2Bvz89Nz6%2FXRuwCFJyjRSCd1QccjhOAt2Y1NLEzCVTOZgOrbtq4ORg9zV1QUI5VX3lxY7enO4QcW0jZUkWAbLTytS9v","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$79.94","priceAmount":79.94,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"79","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"94","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"vovz9XfFAffFMuRzf93MqHL3bR4V2l1thpb%2BCCglUzRDGzAkCfKy69rDLHWxlF81iWV%2BjGNDOv6GQSXa%2Ff2xGsqeMg2bJQVzDWfuEKKxdr%2F6mg7fVU0qlNO0yRZAi5SF%2FDUrCLEeFKTGemAMWMjd5yWDq2LRqT9vpksJ0CXQ9jk7PeRXubf%2B8ZQHgFOE%2BCyg","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

Like his legendary Hogg, The Mad Man, and the million-seller Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany’s major new novel Through the Valley of the Nest of Spidersexplicit, poetic, philosophical, and, yes, shockingpropels readers into a gay sexual culture unknown to most urban gay men and women, a network of rural gay relationswith the twist that this one is supported by the homophile Kyle Foundation, started in the early 1980s by a black multi-millionaire, Robert Kyle III, to improve the lives of black gay men.

In 2007, days before his seventeenth birthday, Eric Jeffers’ stepfather brings him to live with his mother, who works as a waitress in the foundering tourist town of Diamond Harbor on the Georgia coast. In the local truck stop restroom, on his first day, Eric meets nineteen-year-old Morgan Haskell, as well as half a dozen other gay men who live and work in the area. The boys become a couple, and for the next twenty years labor as garbage men along the coast, sharing their lives and their lovers, learning to negotiate a committed open relationship. For a decade they manage a rural movie theater that shows pornographic films and encourages gay activity among the audience. Finally, they become handymen for a burgeoning lesbian art colony on nearby Gillead Island, as America moves twenty years, forty years, sixty years into a future fascinating, glorious, andsometimesterrifying.

Review

Praise for Dark Reflections

"Samuel R. Delany is not only one of the most profound and courageous writers at work today, he is a writer of seemingly limitless range. Delany can populate alien worlds or hypothetical futures and he can, with equal skill, home in, as he does in Dark Reflections, on the extraordinary life of a single, outwardly ordinary man living right now in New York City. Delany gives us to understand that all worlds, including our own, are alien, and terrifying, and wondrous."--Michael Cunningham

"Dark Reflections is one of the most honest books I've ever read about the martyrdom of the writer in the contemporary world. Samuel Delany, who has entertained readers for decades with his rich fantasies, now gives us the truth and nothing but the truth. At certain points I wanted to put this down because it was so sad--but I couldn't because I was so engrossed by its spare beauty and its searing frankness."--Edmund White

"In previous books, Delany has shown himself to be comfortable with both gay and straight, black and white milieusnot to mention various literary formsbut the hero of this heartfelt, often funny book is triply alienatedDark Reflections, while harrowing and bleak, is mainly tendera loving rendition of a place that gentrification has all but obliterated, a spot-on portrait of the East Village artist as a gay black geek."--Andrew Holleran, writing in The Washington Post

Praise for Dhalgren

"I consider Delany not only one of the most important SF writers of the present generation, but a fascinating writer in general who has invented a new style." --Umberto Eco

"The very best ever to come out of the science fiction field... A literary landmark." --Theodore Sturgeon

About the Author

Along with four Nebula Awards, two Hugo Awards, and the William Whitehead Memorial Award for his lifetime contribution to lesbian and gay writing, Samuel R. Delany is a winner of the Kessler Award from CLAGS at SUNY Graduate Center.

Born and raised in New York City’s Harlem in 1942, from 1988 to 1999 he was a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. After two years’ teaching in the SUNY Buffalo Poetics Program, since January 2000 he has been a professor of English and creative writing at Temple University, where he is Director of the Graduate Creative Writing Program.

His novels include Nova (1968), Dhalgren (1975), Trouble on Triton (1976), and The Mad Man (1995). He is author of the four-book series, Return to Nevèrÿon (1979’87), and the short novel Phallos (2004). His most recent novel, Dark Reflections (2008), won the 2008 Stonewall Book Award and was a runner up for that year’s Lambda Literary Award. His stories have been collected in Aye, and Gomorrah, and Other Stories (2002) and Atlantis: Three Tales (1995). His nonfiction volumes include The Jewel-Hinged Jaw (1977rev. 2009), About Writing: Seven Essays, Three Letters, and Five Interviews (2006), and Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1998).

He was a judge on the fiction panel for the 2010 National Book Award. A collection of his interviews has appeared in the University of Mississippi Press’s prestigious Conversations with Writers Series, Conversations with Samuel R. Delany (2009), edited by Carl Freedman.

He lives in New York City.

Print length

625 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Magnus Books
Publication date

April 17, 2012
Dimensions

6 x 2.25 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

193683314X
ISBN-13

978-1936833146
See all details

Frequently bought together

Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

$348.64

Get it Jan 16 - 23

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

Ships from and sold by GF Books, Inc..

+

$16.00

Get it as soon as Saturday, Jan 13

Only 12 left in stock (more on the way).

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

+

$11.98

Get it as soon as Friday, Jan 12

Only 13 left in stock (more on the way).

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

Total price:

To see our price, add these items to your cart.

Try again!

Details

Added to Cart

Some of these items ship sooner than the others.

Show details Hide details

Choose items to buy together.

Samuel R. Delany
788
Paperback
80 offers from $4.89
Samuel R. Delany
616
Paperback
36 offers from $3.43
Samuel R. Delany
45
Paperback
15 offers from $8.76
Samuel R. Delany
1,591
Paperback
47 offers from $6.69
Samuel R. Delany
46
Paperback
18 offers from $9.99
Samuel R. Delany
197
Paperback
61 offers from $6.29

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Magnus Books; First Edition (April 17, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 625 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 193683314X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1936833146
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 2.25 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,543,087 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #12,083 in LGBTQ+ Genre Fiction (Books)
- #128,431 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- #148,667 in American Literature (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.4 84 ratings

Important information

To report an issue with this product or seller, click here.

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Samuel R. Delany

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Samuel R. Delany’s science fiction and fantasy tales are available in Aye and Gomorrah and Other Stories. His collection Atlantis: Three Tales and Phallos are experimental fiction. His novels include science fiction such as the Nebula-Award winning Babel-17 and The Einstein Intersection, as well as Nova (now in a Library of America anthology) and Dhalgren. His four-volume series Return to Nevèrÿon is sword-and-sorcery. Most recently, he has written the SF novel Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. His 2007 novel Dark Reflections won the Stonewall Book Award. Other novels include Equinox, Hogg, and The Mad Man. Delany was the subject of a 2007 documentary, The Polymath, by Fred Barney Taylor, and he has written a popular creative writing textbook, About Writing. He is the author of the widely taught Times Square Red / Times Square Blue, and his book-length autobiographical essay, The Motion of Light in Water, won a Hugo Award in 1989. All are available as both e-books and paperback editions. His website is: www.samueldelany.com.

Photo by Alex Lozupone (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

84 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Cory MacDonald

These characters are part of my life.

Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2021

Verified Purchase

I love this book.

I don't want to get into long-winded, adjective laden descriptions and testimonies of why I love this book because it's too close to me. It's such a part of my life now that in trying to describe why I love it my praise never sounds quite right; it rings hollow. Yes this book is beautiful, laugh-out-loud funny, gloriously raunchy, and intellectually stimulating--and yes, these are all fantastic reasons to check out this book. However, if I want to be as honest as possible, I think you should check out this book because I want you to hopefully experience what I did...I want you to meet these characters, I want you to grow attached to them, learn from them, and I want them to be an integral part of your life like they are for me.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

A difficult read with a tremendous payoff

Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2015

Verified Purchase

I'm part of a four-year running SF book group. We're a pretty mixed crowd and almost every book we read has a mix of folks who liked it and those that were unimpressed at best. Several of us just couldn't make it through the beginning of this book...but this is the first novel in four years where every member who got to the end was very impressed. The beginning felt dull to most of us (though I still enjoyed Delany's use of language) but there's something very intentional that's building thoughout. In the end, it's a subtle, powerful, philosophical novel. I can't recommend it to everyone--I have plenty of folks in my life who just won't be able to make it through the long, graphic, and often tedious beginning...but for anyone who can, there's real gem that reveals itself over time. I expect this to be a favorite novel for many many years.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Peter Chinman

So Raunchy I Thought I Couldn't Read It

Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2022

Verified Purchase

I had no idea what this book would be like, going in. The only other Delaney I'd read is Dhalgren, which I loved, so I thought I'd try another, and happened to pick this one.

This is the raunchiest book I've ever read. So raunchy that I wasn't sure I could stomach it. Like, I literally felt abdominal discomfort, at first, reading some of the passages (specifically the smegma scenes…)

I set the book down. I read something else. But then, I found myself missing the characters. I picked it back up.

This book is cheesy (both in the smegma sense, and narratologically) but there's also a… wholesomeness to it? An innocence? Which sounds absurd, being applied to a book so raunchy my stomach hurt.

It's long. You get to spend a lot of time with the characters. And I found that I came to love their presence in my life. I missed them when they were gone.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

whalter58

TEXT ERRATA AND BONUS CHAPTER !

Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2012

Verified Purchase

AS OF 02 APRIL 2012 THE TEXT ERRATA CAN BE FOUND AT oneringcircus.com. ALSO A BONUS CHAPTER (INSERT BEFORE CHAPTER 90) PDF IS THERE AS WELL.FOR KINDLE READERS TURN ON 'POPULAR HIGHLIGHTS'AND I HAVE HIGHLIGHTED AS BEST I CAN WHERE THE ERRATA AND BONUS CHAPTER GO INTO THE TEXT, THEN YOU CAN COPY AND PASTE THEM INTO YOUR 'NOTES' OF YOUR KINDLE COPY. THE ERRATA IS MOSTLY MINOR MISTAKES (DELANY IS KNOWN TO BE VERY ATTENTIVE TO THIS KIND OF MINUTAE), BUT A BONUS CHAPTER IS A REAL TREAT!
GIVE ALL YOUR THANKS TO FELLOW DELANY FAN Kevin Donaker-Ring, who compiled Delany errata AT ONERINGCIRCUS.COM

I'M SUCH A DELANY FAN THAT AFTER WAITING FOR ALMOST TWO YEARS FOR THIS BOOK (A SHUTTERED PUBLISHING HOUSE IS JUST ONE OF ITS TROUBLES)I BOUGHT BOTH THE PRINT AND KINDLE EDITION. I AM CURRENTLY READING THROUGH BOTH OF THEM.

15 people found this helpful

Helpful

Nick Polak

Delany's Latest is a Challenge That Pays Off

Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2012

Verified Purchase

Challenging and off-putting, transgressive and liberating, mundane and joyous, "Through the Valley . . ." is Delany at his frighteningly honest best. Mixing elements of sf, pornography and journalistic epic, he weaves the tale of two life companions from their first meeting through the end of their days.

This is not an easy read, but life is not often easily lived, and the pay-off is the beauty of Delany's language - his eye for the odd but telling detail and the social comment ever-present but never didactic.

Delany is our Wolff, our Joyce (and sometimes our Sacher-Masoch) and this is a truly memorable, even epic, ride.

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

Delany is back!

Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2013

Verified Purchase

In his first science fiction novel in a looong time, Delany gives us the story of two lovers across several decades, from youth to old age. There is a great deal of explicit (and occasionally gross) sex, but oddly the book isn't very "stimulating" that way: the sex isn't cold and clinical, but described in very factual terms that keep it from being really pornographic.

The science fiction is almost in the background; the "future" that happens is presented mostly as it affects our protagonists, who are far from the center of society.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Drake Ford

An immersive and moving story about an interracial gay couple.

Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2021

Verified Purchase

What a wonderful book by a fantastic author. The book I've been looking for my whole life.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Desertboy2

WTF?

Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2013

Verified Purchase

I may read more someday. I don't think of myself as a prude but thus far I have no idea what these endless descriptions of filthy (scat) pornography have to do with this story. They are not erotic, just gross. I loved Dahlgren and The Motion Of Light on Water, but this book is either way over my head or way below it.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

eugenio

Bellissimo

Reviewed in Italy on September 29, 2021

Verified Purchase

Non amo lasciare recensioni.
Ma ho letto questo libro quasi due anni fa, e da allora non faccio che pensarci.
Non tutti i libri mi fanno questo effetto. Anzi.
E' un romanzo difficile, faticoso, talvolta disturbante.
Eppure eppure eppure.
C'è qualcosa di eminentemente letterario in questa scrittura che cerca di riprodurre la forma stessa della memoria (al di là di Proust): una memoria lenta, accuratissima dell'infanzia, che via via si fa più veloce, sclerotizzata, quasi disattenta. E se il libro inizia a un certo punto a saltare anni su anni come se non avessero lasciato traccia nel protagonista è perché i nostri ricordi sono fatti così (e certo un po' di Alzheimer non aiuta...).
C'è qualcosa di estremamente vero in questa descrizione dell'amore che esclude ogni forma di narratività perché esclude il conflitto - e se il conflitto c'è, è intimo, personale; non crea labirinti sentimentali, ma solo dubbi esistenziali - e non è solo sesso, e non si oppone al sesso, ma lo compenetra, lo esaurisce.
C'è qualcosa di intimo, riconoscibile, in questo futuro immediato, appena immaginato, tracciato con poche semplici, quasi invisibili linee, in cui ci saranno più diritti per i gay, ma anche nuovi attentati terroristici e qualche problema ambientale.
Nel leggerlo ho avuto voglia di piangere, voglia di ridere.
E a ripensarci ho voglia di rileggerlo.
O di rileggermi l'Etica di Spinoza, che in qualche modo - di nascosto - occhieggia dietro ogni pagina del libro, moltiplicando e confondendo i mille piani di lettura.

One person found this helpful

Translate review to English

M. Malthouse

Do not read this book while eating

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 5, 2015

Verified Purchase

In fact do not read this book while thinking about eating.

Excise the sex scenes and you'd have an elegant novella...

Um... It's probably brilliant. It's certainly affecting; the last third constantly made me want to weep (not cool when reading during smoke breaks at work).

A 70 year gay love story. Beautifully written prose, utterly real and absorbing.

Side note of irritation: if Delaney can write this why can't he write the once-promised sequel to Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand?

2 people found this helpful

Stephen J. Kitzul

Disgustingly intriguing!

Reviewed in Canada on September 25, 2020

Verified Purchase

WOW !!! Right from the first page, this book grabs you, makes you swallow hard to get past your inhibitions, and engrosses you into a world not many know about.

One person found this helpful

Otis

Messy format

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 15, 2020

Verified Purchase

Nothing wrong with the story itself – I’m only just starting to read it – but the formatting of this edition is messy and looks incomplete. Punctuation runs over to the next line and sometimes the quotation marks are the wrong way around. It’s really distracting. I don’t expect this many errors in a book!

canoetoo

From the sublime to the pornographic

Reviewed in Canada on June 10, 2016

Verified Purchase

This is the second book by Samuel Delany that I have read. I experience so many different feelings and reactions when I am reading his sometimes outrageously startling writing that I'm never quite sure how I feel about it at the time. But I find I am always extremely satisfied when things come to an end and am left haunted by the experience.

One person found this helpful

See more reviews

Buy new: $348.64$348.64 FREE delivery: Jan 16 - 23 Ships from: GF Books, Inc. Sold by: GF Books, Inc.

Buy used: $79.94

Follow the author

Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders Paperback – April 17, 2012

Purchase options and add-ons

Review

About the Author

Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Product details

Important information

About the author

Samuel R. Delany

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries

Buy new:

$348.64

FREE delivery: Jan 16 - 23

Ships from: GF Books, Inc.

Sold by: GF Books, Inc.

Buy used:

$79.94