How a Community Makes a Book

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

I first met writer and literary journalist Robert Gray when I was Editor-in-Chief of Carroll & Graf Publishers and he worked at the splendid Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont. I loved that his email address at the time incorporated the phrase “marbleman,” as a personal homage to Vermont’s marble quarrying. We both later moved on but kept in touch, especially after he became a regular contributor to the daily book world read Shelf Awareness, and I started curating and writing The Great Gray Bridge. Robert’s pieces for Shelf Awareness are published under the rubric, “Deeper Understanding.”

Recently, I let Robert know about Rust Belt Chic: A Cleveland Anthology to which I’d contributed an essay, hoping the DIY energy that produced the book would appeal to him, and that he might want to cover it in his column. He took the opportunity to heart and today published a great piece, “Self-Pub, Sense of Place & Concentric Circles,” with passages like this:

“When you want to know about a place, ask the people who live there. When you want to read about a place, read the writers whose words reveal more than just the surface of a region’s past and present. What does that have to do with self-publishing? This: For a bookseller considering the possibility of stocking a self-published book, one reliable sign of a winner is a title with a tangible sense of place. Whether or not such a book eventually finds readers beyond the region, it must begin at the center–a pebble dropped in a local pond–before concentric retail sales circles can spread. In their introduction . . . editors Richey Piiparinen and Anne Trubek describe the project as “a community effort to tell the story of a city.” And that’s just what it is.” 

Later, Robert generously mentions my essay, “Remembering Mr. Stress, Live at The Euclid Tavern,” linking to an expanded version of it on this blog. I invite you to read Robert’s entire piece at this Shelf Awareness link, and my piece if you haven’t yet. Robert’s past columns can also be found at his website, Fresh Eyes Now.

I should add that the Nook, Apple, and Kindle ebook editions of Rust Belt Chic are currently being sold in their respective digital stores for the terrific price of $2.99 (link for Nook store, ITunes store, and Kindle store). Finally, I’m also happy to report that the first Rust Belt Chic event in the NYC area is coming up, Thursday, January 3 in Brooklyn at Public Assembly. I’ll be there to read, as will other northern Ohio transplants in the NYC area. It would be great to see you there!

Read more

Mayhem Takes a Holiday

/0 Comments/in , /by

Earlier this week, TV station NY1 reported that

“The New York City Police Department says not a single murder, shooting, stabbing or slashing was reported in the five boroughs on Monday. . . .Police officials could not say when they last saw a similar crime-free streak.”

Not to be glib about this good news, but hearing it I was reminded of the terrific 1934 film, “Death Takes a Holiday,” directed by Mitchell Leisen and with Frederic March cast as the figure of Death who pays an incognito visit to the human realm for a weekend, during which he becomes the house guest of a wealthy man and falls in love with his beautiful daughter. Over these days, it emerges in radio news bulletins that people have simply stopped dying. The usual mayhem–shipwrecks, car wrecks, personal vendettas–have unaccountably stopped leading  to the demise of even a single human being. As the weekend ebbs, the wealthy man realizes just who his strange guest is and it dawns on him that the romance with his daughter will inevitably lead to her being taken from him when Death returns to his spectral realm. As the engrossing plot unfolds, the older man pleads with Death to spare her and take him instead, and events spiral to a dramatic climax.

There is a small but sturdy sub-genre of films that personify Death. Among these are Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal,” with Max Von Sydow costumed as a black-clad knight who plays chess against Death, hoping to forestall his inevitable demise for as long as their match continues. The black & white cinematography imbues this 1957 classic with unforgettable mood and atmosphere.

Another film of this sort that I admire is A Matter of Life and Death, directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (I keep a link to an archive/fan site for this titanic duo on my personal blogroll in the right rail on this website) with David Niven playing a WWII pilot whose airplane is hit by anti-aircraft fire. During his lethal descent toward earth, he talks to and falls in love with a female radio operator–played by Kim Hunter–only to somehow survive the fiery wreck. Turns out that the representative of the deathly realm who was supposed to usher Niven to the beyond has been derelict in his duty. Under pain of penalty by heavenly authorities this sad sack angel must atone for his malpractice and reclaim the pilot, who says, basically, “Nothing doing, you’ve had your chance.”

While I recognize that New York City’s holiday from mayhem was bound to be shortlived, I’m grateful for the welcome respite we experienced this week, and for the fact that it reminded me of these great movies.

Read more

A Republican in Exile–Why FOX News Doesn’t Book Bruce Bartlett Anymore

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Bruce Bartlett is a longtime economic conservative who worked for Republican officeholders going back to the first Reagan administration. He even worked in the company of Jude Wanniski, basically the originator of supply-side economics. He was, as is said, “present at the creation”–in this case of modern conservatism.

Beginning soon after George W. Bush’s re-election it became apparent if you knew Bartlett from earlier in his career that he was increasingly uncomfortable with Republican orthodoxy. For Bartlett, it arose specifically over Bush policies, especially the reckless spending he committed the country to, as in the 2006 Medicare drug bill. Bartlett voiced his opposition prominently in conservative media, and as he tells it in an important chronicle published Tuesday in the American Conservative, it got him called on the carpet at think tanks he’d written for and worked at, and dismissed more than once over the past several years. The ire directed toward him by true believers made things more difficult for him financially.

One nugget that’s gotten play in the media today is Bartlett’s contention that when he published the book, Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (2006), bigwigs at FOX let it be known inside the network that he was not to be booked on any of their programs. Greg Sargent reported on this today in Plum Line.  Sargent spoke with Bartlett’s then-publicist at Doubleday, Nicole Dewey, who explained that

“She . . . tried extensively to get him booked on FOX to discuss the book — to no avail. ‘It was surprising to me that no one would book him,’ Dewey told [Sargent]. ‘He had been a regular on Fox News prior to that. He had been interviewed on any number of Fox News shows before that.’ Once Bartlett published the book, Dewey confirms, ‘I was pitching him directly to probably most of the shows that were on Fox at that point. No one would book him.’ A Fox spokesperson didn’t immediately return an email for comment. Asked directly about Bartlett’s claim that she’d been told that ‘orders had come down from on high’ that the book was to receive ‘no publicity whatsoever,’ Dewey said she didn’t remember precisely what reason she was given by Fox for not booking Bartlett for any appearances—it was six years ago. But she said Bartlett’s description of events ‘rings true to me. My general sense was that they didn’t like the message of the book,’ Dewey said. ‘Bruce’s recollection of events sounds exactly like what happened.’”

In the hours since Sargent posted his interview with Nicole Dewey, there’s been a little pushback from FOX and the Wall St. Journal (updates that Sargent has appended to his blog post) where Bartlett thought he had also been shut out. However, an editor there, Gerald Seib, denied this after seeing Bartlett’s article. Bartlett concedes in an update to his piece that he may have been wrong about the Journal, but contends his main point about FOX remains true.*

I love that Sargent sought out the publicist, Dewey (who now works at Little, Brown), and am glad for my industry that one of our professionals had first-hand knowledge and was available to be consulted about a matter where current events and publishing coincide so intimately in an important news item.

The title of Bartlett’s article “Revenge of the Reality-Based Community–My life on the Republican right—and how I saw it all go wrong“, is a nod to Ron Suskind’s pivotal 2004 NY Times Magazine story, “Faith, Certainty, and the Presidency of George W. Bush.” Bartlett was quoted in Suskind’s story, after which he was “chewed out” by his boss. As important as Suskind’s article became in understanding the Bush administration’s divorce from reality, I think Bartlett’s will be judged equally important in understanding how life for many longtime Republicans has become untenable for them within their own party. Bartlett’s is piece is also a helluva read, kind of suspenseful and dramatic, with a lot of the author’s own self in it. I think this piece should be in all the round-ups of longform stories this week–even for the year 2012–whether longreads.com, longform.org, or the Daily Beast’s weekly round-up of imperative reads in narrative journalism. In fact, I think I’ll share this post with Lucas Wittmann, Books Editor at the Beast, and recommend Bartlett’s piece to him.

Disclosure: I am a Facebook friend of Bruce Bartlett (he’s got about 3,500 friends). We’ve never met or spoken.

*Update: David Frum, also the target of right-wing ostracism, vouches for publicist Nicole Dewey in a brief Daily Beast piece:
“I know Nicole Dewey, the source quoted by Greg Sargent in the piece linked, and she is indeed one of the best of the best in the business.”

Read more

Terrific Price for Ebook Editions of “Rust Belt Chic: A Cleveland Anthology”

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Readers of this blog will recall that I contributed an essay, “Remembering Mr. Stress, Live at The Euclid Tavern,” to Rust Belt Chic: A Cleveland Anthology. Co-editor Anne Trubek reports that the book is selling well, in its ebook and trade paperback editions,  and is frequently being reordered by book retailers including Amazon.com. Anne posted news on Facebook tonight that the Nook, Apple, and Kindle ebook editions are right now being sold in the respective digital stores for the terrific price of $2.99 (Nook store, ITunes store, and Kindle store)
I’m also glad to report that the first Rust Belt Chic event in the NYC area is coming up, Thursday, January 3 in Brooklyn at Public Assembly. I’ll be there to read, as will other northern Ohio transplants in the NYC area. It would be great to see you there!

Read more

Green-wood Cemetery, Pumelled By Sandy

/0 Comments/in /by

Ever since Superstorm Sandy hit NYC October 29th, I’ve wondered how Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn–with its 470 acres and 1000s of trees–had fared. Earlier in October, I had written about my first visit there, when a new statue at the graveside of New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk was unveiled. At the time, I wrote this about the cemetery:

The complex, 478 acres of rolling hills (making it more than half the size of Manhattan’s Central Park), big hardwood trees, and sparkling views of Manhattan and NY Harbor, was founded in 1838 as a non-denominational burial ground that also offered what was described then as a “rural” location. To the urbanites who conceived Green-wood, it was important to create a pastoral, soothing place for mourners to say goodbye to their loved ones. . . . It is still pastoral and still a balm to the daily cares of city-dwellers.

Sunday’s NY Times had the regrettable answer about the effects of Sandy on Green-wood. According to the story by David Dunlap, and the accompanying photo slideshow, 100s of trees were toppled in the storm and many headstones and gravesites were broken and wrecked, as can be seen here in one of Dunlap’s photos. The harm done at Green-wood is is just one more of the many injuries suffered by New York City in the past month.

Read more

Give Ed Kennedy a Posthumous Pulitzer!

/0 Comments/in /by

The Washington Post reports that fifty-four prominent journalists are recommending that a Pulitzer Prize be awarded to the late Ed Kennedy, nearly seventy years after the American journalist first revealed to English-language readers the news of Germany’s surrender to the Allies in WWII. Sadly, rather than receiving laurels for his scoop, Kennedy’s press credentials were withdrawn by the American military for breaking their embargo on this information, and he was later fired by the Associated Press. Kennedy had broken the ban after learning that the information was being held not for security reasons, but so that Joseph Stalin could “stage a signing ceremony of his own to claim partial credit for the surrender, and U.S. officials were interested in helping him have his moment of glory.” When he next learned that news of the historic surrender had already been broadcast on German radio, Kennedy, then in France, found a phone that he knew was “not being monitored by military censors,” and transmitted this message to AP editors in London: “Germany has surrendered unconditionally.”

According to the Post‘s Manuel Froig-Ranzia, “Kennedy’s story ran big in newspapers around the world. It should have been his greatest moment, but it became an ordeal. The military revoked his credentials, but that was the least of the indignities. His fellow correspondents turned on him, voting 54 to 2 to condemn him. And the head of AP— the Philadelphia Bulletin’s publisher, Robert McLean—apologized for Kennedy’s report rather than praising him.” Like a schoolboy called on the carpet, “Kennedy was summoned back to AP headquarters, where his bosses refused to accept his resignation but also refused to give him any work. Several months later, he discovered more than $4,000 in his checking account—it was a severance, though no one had the courtesy to tell him he was being fired.

Kennedy died in 1963, at age fifty-eight, leaving behind his wife, Lyn Crost, also a former war correspondent, and daughter Julia, who would later become a journalist, as well. She told Froig-Ranzia that the AP fired her father “in the most cowardly way.” After his death, a book-length manuscript surfaced that he’d completed in 1951, for which he’d never been able to find a publisher. Froig-Ranzia reports that,

“Over the years, Cochran tried to read it. But she could never finish it. It was too painful to recall the father she’d lost when she was just 16. She kept it packed away for more than 40 years, through marriage and divorce and a career change. Eventually, in retirement, she found time to read it anew and to gain a deeper understanding of the father she’d lost. She set about searching for someone who would let her father tell his story. The publisher she found—Louisiana State University Press—didn’t tell her who they’d asked to write the introduction. It was Curley, the AP president [nowadays]. She was ‘overjoyed’ when she read what he’d written, sentiments that he said Kennedy’s former bosses and AP’s board of that era ‘could not admit.’

“Edward Kennedy,” Curley wrote, “was the embodiment of the highest aspirations of the Associated Press and American journalism.”

The book, Ed Kennedy’s War: V-E Day, Censorship, and the Associated Press, was published in May of this year, and Cochran is making appearances in support of the book. Among its supporters is Sydney Schanberg, who wrote this in his endorsement of the book, “Ed Kennedy’s AP war stories were smoothly written, full of flowing English and rich in detail. He was the kind of reporter who made his readers feel they were there with him on the scene. This fascinating memoir was written by a gifted war correspondent.”

I am eager to read Ed Kennedy’s War, and hopeful that the Pulitzer committee will redress the wrong that was done to him by recognizing him with a belated award.

Read more

The President and His Daughters Enjoy Buying Books

/0 Comments/in , /by

Just like last year around this time, President Obama and his daughters went shopping at a local bookstore today, on what is known as #SmallBizSat. They shopped at One More Page Books in Arlington, VA. No word yet from the White House, who tweeted out this picture, about which bookstore they were at (in Arlington, VA), nor what books the bookselling staff are wrapping up here. It sure is great to see the First Family buying books like this, a shot of high-profile bookbuying the book industry can really use.

Here are more photos from the Obamas’ visit to the bookstore. Photo credit for all these photos is “AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE”

 

Read more

#FridayReads, Nov. 23–“The Double Game” and “Gotham”

/0 Comments/in , /by

This week, more of a #FridayRe-Reads than a #FridayReads

#FridayReads, Nov. 23–The Double Game, Dan Fesperman’s brilliant riff on the spy novel genre, and Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace.  It may be the distractions of the holiday week–I’ve just been re-reading a couple of favorites. Last summer I blogged about Fesperman’s novel, and found it so irresistible I’ve picked it up again. The author ingeniously embeds plot points and clues in his story from books by giants of the genre–Le Carre, Ambler, Greene, Buchan, Childers, and others–actual volumes that are in the personal library of the novel’s narrator. It’s a true tour de force, and so good I find myself challenged to say something truly intelligent about it. It was published last August, and I’ve been a bit disappointed to see that it seems to have been published without the notice it deserves.

Gotham, published by Oxford University Press in 1999, is a rare book written by scholars in that it is as readable as any novel or potboiler. Although the narrative proceeds chronologically from the establishment of New Amsterdam through the incorporation of the five boroughs in to one great city, there are tremendous set pieces in it–on the electrification of the metropolis; the Draft Riots; the rise of a national publishing scene from Manhattan, and many others. A second volume, bringing the history of the city up to the present, is due to be published at some future point. Meantime, I relish this initial volume, so good on so many aspects of New York City history. Before publication it was praised by the late Edward Robb Ellis, about whom I blogged on the latest anniversary of his birthday. I published four books by Ellis, including his worthy predecessor to Gotham, The Epic of New York City. Eddie blurbed Burrows’ and Wallace’s book, saying, “Gotham is a masterpiece. It is the best history of New York ever written. It will be read a century from now.”

This week I’ve also read and savored writer Nick Paumgarten’s thorough examination of the Grateful Dead’s library of in-concert live recordings that’s running in the current New Yorker. I actually disagree with some of his dismissive conclusions about the Dead’s music, but am appreciative of the effort he went to in listening to these many hours of music, as well as visiting with the archivists and band members such as Phil Lesh.

Read more