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Sold to Penguin Random House Audio: Yours, for Probably Always: Martha Gellhorn’s Letters of Love & War, 1930-1949   by Janet Somerville

April 2, 2021 /1 Comment/in , , /by

I’m excited to announce a deal I’ve made for a major new audiobook to be published on May 18 2021 by Penguin Random House Audio for Toronto writer Janet Somerville’s widely praised book Yours, for Probably Always: Martha Gellhorn’s Letters of Love & War, 1930-1949 (Firefly Books, hardcover 2019). Tony Award-winning actress Ellen Barkin*, a Gellhorn enthusiast and admirer of Somerville’s book, will be the voice of the audio edition. You can pre-order the audiobook via this link.

As with photojournalist Ruth Gruber** (1911-2016), Gellhorn (1908-1998, b. St Louis), was a trailblazer in her field. From the pitch letter I sent to acquiring editor Megan Mills at Penguin Random House Audio:

Journalist. Pioneer. Feminist. Human rights advocate. 

Martha Gellhorn was all of these and more, leaving her role as wife of Ernest Hemingway a lesser light among many noteworthy milestones. Rendered sensitively here by Janet Somerville in a curated collection of letters braided together with a biographical narrative threaded through the correspondence, Yours, for Probably Always brings readers into Gellhorn’s life and career shaped by her combat reporting, all spanning the Depression, the Spanish Civil War, WWII, the refugee crisis following the aftermath of the war and the Holocaust, and the Cold War. Somerville also highlights Gellhorn’s friendships, her lovers, and a life lived intentionally. 

Gellhorn’s work speaks to our times; she was a champion of the poor and dispossessed, a vocal critic of war and brutality, and a warrior against oppression. Her weapons were her pen and her words. Her circle included Gary Cooper, Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Beach, Colette, John Dos Passos, Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, Adlai Stevenson, and Robert Capa, a dear friend. Among her regular correspondents reflected in this collection were Leonard Bernstein; Eleanor Roosevelt; H.G. Wells; Maxwell Perkins; Charles Scribner; US General James Gavin, a high-profile critic of America’s War in Vietnam, and a romantic partner to Gellhorn; French philosopher Bertrand de Jouvenel; and of course, Hemingway.

Along with the letters, the book includes examples of Gellhorn’s journalism, fiction, and excerpts from her journals. An ardent anti-fascist, Gellhorn was a life-long advocate of social justice and a strong-willed, self-made modern woman. Yours, for Probably Always shines a light on this intrepid reporter and fearless figure.

The reception for Yours, for Probably Always

When the hardcover edition was published it carried glowing endorsements from Ward Just and Azar Nafisi, seen on the book jacket above, receiving wide coverage and superb reviews, including a starred Kirkus; coverage in the Guardian, where it was their Book of the Day; the NY Review of Books; and some Twitter love from actor Alec Baldwin:

  • “Somerville makes an impressive book debut with a life of novelist, journalist, and intrepid war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, told through a captivating selection of her letters to friends, family, husbands, and lovers. The volume is enriched by Somerville’s biographical narrative and her decision to include responses of many recipients and, in some cases, letters between individuals who were especially significant in Gellhorn’s life… An engrossing collection that burnishes Gellhorn’s reputation as an astute observer, insightful writer, and uniquely brave woman.”—Kirkus Reviews, a starred review
  • “It’s history as it was lived, and shared in intimate emotional detail… Curated with valuable context by Janet Somerville… her own love letter of sorts to a woman she calls ‘a wonder.’”—Lyse Doucet, Guardian Books,
  • “Martha Gellhorn was many things, including a novelist and short story writer, but a ‘relator of Wars”’ is the most important of them. . . . As early as 1935, her regular correspondent Allen Grover wrote to Gellhorn that ‘I should one day publish your collected letters. They’re magnificent prose.’ They are—and they are also precious traces of the turbulent, passionate, relentless, self-examined inner life of a woman of honor whose indomitable character is beautifully summed up by her mother in Somerville’s invigorating collection: ‘She lacks everything that makes living easy, she possesses most things that make it worthwhile.’”—Fintan O’Toole, New York Review of Books
  • The CBC radio program Day 6 aired a feature on Somerville’s book which explained,
    “Though [Gellhorn’s] dispatches from Normandy and Spain, which documented a mother’s grief after her child was killed by a bomb, brought humanity to tragedy for years, it was a report on Dachau…that made her famous. ‘My personal war aim was to get into Dachau,’ Gellhorn [said] in a 1983 TV interview. ‘I did get there and I was there the day the war ended. I didn’t have to be objective, in the sense that what was there to be objective about? It was a total and absolute horror and all I did was report it as it was.'”

Janet Somerville and Ellen Barkin

Somerville learned of Barkin’s interest in Gellhorn in 2019 when she offered to send the actor a copy of the hardcover book. They continued exchanging correspondence, by letter, text, and Twitter. Barkin told Somerville that she loved reading a few pages every night before bed, with Gellhorn’s powerful words, and Somerville’s narrative about her, in her mind’s ear.

In summer 2020, the pair spoke voice-to-voice for the first time, and Janet planted a seed about Ellen becoming her book’s voice, should there be an audiobook. Ellen responded with [almost] unprintable alacrity: “It would be my fucking honor.”

Around this time, I became Janet’s agent and my pitch to Penguin Random House Audio came soon after.

We cannot imagine anyone more suited to give Martha Gellhorn’s words vibrant life than Ellen Barkin. Like Gellhorn, she is intelligent, funny, indefatigable, an outspoken champion of the most disenfranchised among us, and a true supporter of social justice, willing to give voice to important issues when a less brave person would turn away. We are delighted she is adding her singular luster to Yours, for Probably Always.

Hemingway on PBS

We’re excited to announce the audiobook this week featuring the voice of Ellen Barkin, ahead of Ken Burns’s new documentary “Hemingway,” which will air on PBS, April 5-7.

—

*  Ellen Barkin was awarded the Tony in 2011 for her role in “The Normal Heart,” her Broadway debut. She broke out as a film actress in 1982 with her performance in “Diner.” She’s also known for her performances in “Tender Mercies” (1983), “Big Easy” (1986), “Sea of Love” (1989), “This Boy’s Life” (1993), “Ocean’s Thirteen” (2007), and “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” (2017).

** Like Gellhorn, Ruth Gruber was a foreign correspondent. I’ve often wondered if Gellhorn and Gruber crossed paths, as their careers tracked closely. Along with reporting from abroad, both women served in the FDR administration—Gellhorn in the Federal Relief Emergency Administration (FERA), and Gruber as Interior Secretary Harold Ickes’ Special Representative to Alaska. I worked with Gruber for twenty years, publishing six of her eighteen books, including Haven: The Dramatic Story of 1,000 WWII Refugees and How They Came to America (Three Rivers Press, 2000, and a CBS mini-series with Natasha Richardson as Ruth Gruber) and Exodus 1947: The Ship that Launched a Nation (Union Square Press, 2008).

 

 

 

 

To be Published by Applause Books: “Emily Mann Rebel Artist of the American Theater” by Alexis Greene

March 18, 2021 /2 Comments/in , /by

Happy to see that Emily Mann: Rebel Artist of the American Theater, by arts writer Alexis Greene, which I sold to Applause Theater and Cinema Books last year, is listed in Applause’s new catalog, scheduled for release in October 2021, coinciding with what we hope will be the reopening of Broadway this coming Fall. The Applause catalog page includes a pre-order button. Thanks to John Cerullo, acquiring editor at Applause.

This will be the first book about Mann, a trailblazing woman playwright and stage director, artistic director of the McCarter Theatre in Princeton from 1993-2020. It chronicles the story of Mann’s path through a field where women have often struggled for the opportunity to direct the work of other playwrights, leave alone see their own plays produced.

Greene chronicles Mann’s role in the growth of a socially-oriented theater with plays she’s written that explore current events and issues while focusing on the lives of under-recognized groups in society, in scripts virtually ripped from the headlines and braided together from archives, diaries, public records, and interviews conducted with participants in momentous events. Dubbed a “theater of testimony” Mann has written such plays as “Execution of Justice,” on the murder of Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone in San Francisco; “Greensboro (A Requiem),” on a deadly 1979 KKK attack; “Mrs. Packard,” based on the true story of a 19th century minister’s wife committed to an asylum when she abandoned the church; “Having Our Say,” based on the bestselling book of the same title, on the centenarian African American sisters Sadie and Bessie Delany; and “Gloria: A Life,” drawn from the life and career of Gloria Steinem. Her development of a kind of new documentary theater has been influential in many ways.

A New York City native, Alexis Greene is the author and editor of numerous books about theater, including The Lion King: Pride Rock on Broadway, written with Julie Taymor, and the biography Lucille Lortel: The Queen of Off Broadway. Her career spans acting, theater criticism, and teaching (she holds a PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York).

 

 

Sold to Broadleaf Books: “Living with Horror: Faith and Fright in an Anxious World”

March 5, 2021 /1 Comment/in , /by

Delighted to have sold biblical scholar Brandon Grafius’s book “Living with Horror: Faith and Fright in an Anxious World” to Broadleaf Books of Minneapolis. It will be a thought-provoking study that explores the parallels between horror and religion, and the common ground shared by fear and faith, offering insight into many of the provocative and surprising theological themes that lurk under the surface of favorite horror films, while also discussing many of the movies, alongside a catalog of biblical stories that evoke fear and trembling. The fears that horror movies force to the surface of consciousness can help us reflect on our own troubled times, and will help readers gain a sense of understanding into the nature of fear and associated emotions. Grafius’s book will also provide an outlet for people struggling to contextualize what they are seeing each day on the news. By examining the themes of hope and faith, and justice and perseverance, all found in horror movies, it will show the reader how horror can help us make sense of the world, and help us all navigate the anxieties that are part of modern life, especially in pandemic times.

Delighted that the author will be working with a very engaged editor at Broadleaf, Lil Copan, who has a vision for the book that really aligns with the author’s book idea. Broadleaf has an interesting list which I commend to readers’ attention.

And, kudos to my adult son and business partner, Ewan Turner, who championed Brandon’s book from the first day he queried us about it.

“Battle for Justice” Shines a Light on Joe Biden, from 1987 to Today

February 15, 2021 /0 Comments/in , /by

With Joe Biden’s recent inauguration as 46th President of the United States, I’ve recently been re-reading a terrific book that shines light on him as a politician and a person, on his inner character, from a lot of very interesting angles. Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America, was originally a Norton hardcover in ’89, written by then-Boston Globe reporter Ethan Bronner, later a NY Times reporter, and now an editor with Bloomberg News. I had the privilege of republishing the book in trade paperback in 2008 when I was Editorial Director of Union Square Press.

At the time Ronald Reagan nominated Bork in July 1987, Biden was Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and had already declared himself a candidate for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination. The Reagan administration wanted confirmation hearings to begin immediately, but as Chair of Judiciary, Biden was in control of the calendar, and the hearings didn’t begin them until late September. This was a smart move, because during the interval opposition to Bork began forming ahead of the hearings, which went very badly for the nominee, who was widely perceived to be too far right-wing for many senators. The vote in committee went against Bork 9-5. Many observers thought Bork would at that point withdraw his nomination, but he insisted on having a vote by the full senate, which also went against him decisively, 58-42, with six Republicans voting Nay. Bronner’s narrative of the nomination fight is engrossing, and filled with Senate figures from our recent past—Ted Kennedy, who led the opposition to Bork; Arlen Specter, who was among the Republicans to vote Nay; Paul Simon, the bow-tied Democrat from Illinois; Pat Leahy of Vermont, who just served as Judge of the Trump Impeachment trial; and the odious John Bolton, who working in the Reagan Justice Department, was nominally responsible for shepherding Bork through the process, where his usual lack of charm contributed to the demise of the Bork nomination, though the nominee’s truculent extremism was the primary factor.

As it happened, Biden’s candidacy for the Democratic nomination also went down in the Summer-Fall of 1987, even before the fate of Bork’s nomination was settled in October of that year. In campaign speeches, Biden had borrowed words from the British Labor politician Neil Kinnock, with attribution at the outset. However, on several occasions that August, and once at a Democratic event in Iowa, he borrowed Kinnock’s words and the British pol’s family story, without acknowledging the source. A Biden campaign aide, Pat Caddell, said he was responsible for inserting the phrases into the speech, but the damage was done.

Seeing Biden as president now, and the scandals the country has witnessed since 1987, it is quaint to see what knocked Biden out back then. I am glad that the quirks of history have unfolded in such a way that Joe Biden is our president in 2021. Bronner’s book is well worth reading again now, in light of all we know today.

 

Soon to be Published: “Ten Garments Every Man Should Own” by Pedro Mendes

February 8, 2021 /1 Comment/in , , /by

I am delighted to share word that a book I sold to Dundurn Press in October 2019, Ten Garments Every Man Should Own: A Practical Guide to Building a Permanent Wardrobe by Toronto mens’ style writer Pedro Mendes, is now a printed book and it will be published in North America next month, March 2021. I’m showing the handsome cover in this post and some of the interior pages.

It’s a practical guide to dressing better by building a classic, sustainable, and ethically minded wardrobe, focused on quality garments, rather than items that have to be replaced after barely a season of wear. Each chapter covers an essential piece: shirt, jacket, hat, leather shoes, and more, plus useful information on caring for a wardrobe. Mendes gives you the facts about what makes a garment worth investing in and owning—how it’s made, how it fits, and how it makes you look. The book is illustrated with precise line drawings, so you can really see the different elements of a garment.

Dundurn’s web page for the book includes this lovely blurb: “If the journey to a conscious closet begins with a single step, the first step is reading this book. Mendes has many lessons to impart about the difference between style and fad fashion, and to get there he asks both the practical and philosophical questions. Ten Garments Every Man Should Own ends up being more than sartorial advice to spruce up your wardrobe—it’s a guide to introspection.”—Nathalie Atkinson, arts and culture journalist and former fashion critic

I know most of us are lounging about in just about any old clothes these days amid the pandemic, but Pedro’s message of dressing with a higher degree of thoughtfulness is a valuable one. It’s an environmentally conscious menswear book, with a focus on sustainably-produced clothing, and owning clothes you keep for a long time, instead of discarding after just a season or two. The book is also handsomely designed, as you’ll see from the cover and shots of pages from it I’ve posted here. If you need to buy a birthday gift, or something for Father’s Day later this year, this could be just what you need.

I first met Pedro when I visited Toronto some years ago and toured the headquarters of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), where he then worked as a producer for CBC Radio 3, the national broadcaster’s outpost for Canadian rock n’ roll. Pedro led a number of indie music fans on a tour of the CBC building. He later left CBC and launched his career as a freelance writer on mens’ style. I’ve blogged often about CBC Radio 3, now shuttered, on my other blog Honourary Canadian. I am developing books with Canadian musicians, as well. We had a coffee that week and I soon after signed him to be a client of my literary agency. His Instagram handle is @pedro.mendes.hogtown, and he blogs on mens’ style at The Hogtown Rake.

From Philip Turner Book Productions—Looking Back on 2020 and Ahead for 2021

January 5, 2021 /0 Comments/in , , /by

Readers of this blog may recall that last summer I announced here that my adult son Ewan Turner had joined Philip Turner Book Productions as Managing Editor, heading up a new division called New Stories, devoted to cultivating new work, including fiction, narrative nonfiction, and memoir. A BFA graduate of The New School, Ewan is a fiction writer himself, and earlier was the editor of KGB Bar Lit Mag and frequently led readings and open mics at that heralded literary venue. As an editorial assistant, he worked with such writers as playwright Mart Crowley; photojournalist Ruth Gruber; literary scholar Michael Patrick Hearn; and illustrator of the Eloise books, Hilary Knight. He’s also the author of Sotapanna, a poetry chapbook that was featured at KGB Bar and PhotoBookWorks Gallery, Beacon, New York.

Looking back on the year that ended last weekend, I see that in 2020 we:

  • Edited manuscripts and book proposals from seventeen different authors;
  • Sold six new books to publishers and four to audio companies, books that will be published this year and next.

Some of those sales have been noted on this site, such as:

  • Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Life , forthcoming by Todd Goddard, on the acclaimed fiction writer, master of the novella, gourmand, and fisherman;
  • Richard Tregaskis: Reporting Under Fire from Guadalcanal to Vietnam by Ray E. Boomhower, coming in 2021 on the author of Guadalcanal Diary, the first bestselling book to emerge from the Pacific theater in WWII;
  • Sparkling new translations of four of the novels in Alexandre Dumas’s timeless Musketeers Cycle by the polymathic Lawrence Ellsworth, game designer and founding member of the team that created Dungeons & Dragons;
  • Emily Mann: Rebel Artist of the American Theater, by Alexis Greene, longtime theater writer, examining the life and career of the prominent woman playwright who’s excelled in a theater world long ruled by a patriarchal structure.
  • And Bring That Beat Back: How Sampling Built Hip-Hop by music writer Nate Patrin, published last May by University of Minnesota Press, and named to many best-of-2020 lists, which will be an audio book in 2021. 

Also in 2020, five books we had earlier sold to publishers were issued. These were:

The Twenty-Ninth Day: Surviving A Grizzly Attack in the Canadian Tundra by Alex Messenger (Blackstone Publishing, trade paperback edition 2020, following 2019 hardcover edition)
The Investigator: Justice and Demons of the Balkan Wars by Vladimir Dzuro (Potomac Books)
The Last Days of Sylvia Plath by Carl Rollyson (University Press of Mississippi, hardcover; Blackstone, audiobook)
Blood Royal: A Sequel to The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, translated by Lawrence Ellsworth (Pegasus Books)
Bring That Beat Back: How Sampling Built Hip-Hop by Nate Patrin (University of Minnesota Press, also named above)

This month marks my eleventh year as an independent editor and literary agent, and I am more energized than ever by the opportunities to work more closely with authors than I did during my latter years in corporate publishing. Even with the many challenges the book industry is facing, such as bookstores now open for only limited, distanced hours due to the lingering pandemic. I am optimistic about the book business, as readers are eager to have the companionship of books, and writers are driven to tell their singular stories.

We work on a wide range of material, with special affinity for imperative books that really matter in people’s lives. I’m always interested in first-person work from authors who’ve passed through some crucible of experience that leaves them uniquely equipped to write their book. If you have a project you’re developing, or a personal essay, and want to discuss your work, or a project you think may be ready to offer to publishers, please don’t hesitate to contact one or both of us.

Ewan can be reached at ewanmturner [@] gmail [.] com, while my contact info is philipsturner [@] gmail [.] com.

“Bring that Beat Back: How Sampling Built Hip-Hop”—Making the Best Books of 2020 Lists

December 20, 2020 /1 Comment/in , , /by

Delighted to see that my author client Nate Patrin‘s hip-hop book Bring that Beat Back: How Sampling Built Hip-Hop (University of Minnesota Press, May 2020; Tantor Media audio book coming in 2021) has been named in several Best Books of 2020 roundups. These are:

1) One of Rolling Stone‘s Best Music Books of 2020: “Curious about the genesis of all of the earworm hooks you hear across every subgenre of hip-hop? Nate Patrin has the goods. Cleverly organized around four pioneering figures in the world of sampling — Grandmaster Flash, Prince Paul, Dr. Dre, and Madlib — this musicological study is never dry, always enthusiastic and appreciative, and groundbreaking in its analysis of the art of sampling as just that: art. Featuring plenty of entertaining cultural history, this is a significant contribution to hip-hop studies.”

2) In the UK, in NME (New Music Express): “Sampling is an enormous force in music – and the genre of hip-hop pioneered it. Digging deep into the record crates of early DJs and focusing on Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, Prince Paul, Dr Dre and Madlib in forensic depth, Nate Patrin delves into its pick’n’mix artistry, and also contextualises the spiralling popularity of sampling against a rush of nostalgia in the later 20th century, which arguably continues to influence the greats today.”

3) On the blog of music retailer Rough Trade: “A deeply informed, eminently readable account of a facet of pop music as complex as it is commonly underestimated.”

4) The book is longlisted for the Minnesota Book Award, named by the St. Paul Public Library.

5) One of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Music Books of the Year: “No one wants a dry hip-hop book, and Patrin’s work is thoroughly engaging from first needle drop to last.”

6) And here’s a podcast with Nate on Maximum Fun with music host Oliver Wang.

Since May, the book has also been covered in Arts Fuse, Scratched Vinyl, Reverb, We Are the Mutants, and numerous other outlets.

“Easy Living,” an Anarchic Depression-Era Fantasy

December 15, 2020 /0 Comments/in /by

I didn’t move to New York City until 1985, after the Automats were gone, and I wish I could’ve seen them. Here’s a hilarious movie clip with an Automat scene from “Easy Living” with Jean Arthur and Ray Milland (1937), a kind of Depression-era anarchic fantasy where all the little food doors swing open to hungry New Yorkers.

Assuming the above clip made you laugh, I recommend the whole film, linked to here in a good print via youtube.