Douglas Woolf's reputation as a young writer was launched with the publications by Grove Press of two novels, Fade Out (1959) and Wall to Wall (1962), but his readership may best remember him for his contributions of short fiction to many of the notable small presses of his era, including Origin, The Divers Press, Black Sparrow, Coyote's Journal, The Jargon Society, Coach House Press, Tombouctou, and his own imprint (with Sandra Braman, his second wife), Wolf Run Books. Fade Out became a best-seller--but only in its 1968 Polish translation--and Wall to Wall was a runner-up in 1961 for the $10,000 Formentor international prize in the novel. In 1971 Harper and Row brought out a double-novel edition of Ya! John-Juan that was quickly remaindered; Woolf bought the leftover stock and sold the book himself on his restless transcontinental treks. Woolf emerged as an influential short-fiction writer in 1965, with the publication of his first collection of...