“OUT OF PRINT”

OUT OF PRINT is the cover inscription in a dream that places the narrator’s abortion memoir between publication and disappearance. Its force lies in the uncertainty it creates: the image can suggest both a book already lost to circulation and a warning that writing may have no point.

The Dreamed Book

The narrator dreams of holding a book she has published about her abortion. It cannot be found in bookstores and does not appear in any catalog; at the bottom of its cover, in huge letters, are the words OUT OF PRINT. The inscription is part of the dream, not a report that the book has actually been published or withdrawn.

Writing and Uncertainty

The dream occurs as the narrator struggles over whether to write about the abortion. She has begun the story only a week earlier and does not know whether she will continue, though the urge to write has become difficult to resist. OUT OF PRINT gives that hesitation a material image: the dreamed book exists, yet is unavailable and unlisted. The narrator cannot decide whether the dream is telling her to write the book or telling her that there would be no point in doing so, and the inscription remains suspended between those possibilities.