I forget how many new blogs there are each day: 475,000 is it? Something big, anyway. But here's one which is at least written by someone who's been there and done it, and was not too impressed by what she saw along the way.
Lynne W. Scanlon, apart from looking quite yummy in a photograph, has written three nonfiction books with total sales exceeding 600,000 copies. She was a group publisher at A/S/M Communications and a consultant in marketing and special sales to Barnes & Noble Books. And now she's started a blog, The Publishing Contrarian.
In one of her early posts, Publishing & Google & the 10% Imperative, Lynne tells us that publishing executives aren't really interested in getting to grips with change. 'They seem to be more concerned with big paychecks, stock options, bonuses, Callaway Golf Clubs, tee times, the Beach Club, the status quo and The State of the Prostate.'
Ah yes. I agree with all that, except the last bit. Let us not mock those who worry about their prostate. You're talking to a man here who's had two hernias and a TURP. So watch it.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Thursday, February 09, 2006
More Contemporary Press
Time to finish off what I was saying yesterday about books published by the Contemporary Press.
Mike Segretto: The Bride of Trash
On a recent visit to Eastbourne, home of the staid and retired, I noticed, out of a corner of my eye, a poster for Circus of Horrors. Aha, I thought -- remembering the 1960 film of that name -- that poster can't have been there for 45 years, so someone remembers the old thing with affection. It must have become a cult movie.
The movie was, incidentally, written by George Baxt, who came to London to do the job. I was introduced to him, by a mutual friend, in the interval of Brendan Behan's The Hostage at Wyndham's Theatre. Baxt was an entirely commercial writer -- not a literary bone in him -- but he produced some entertaining stuff in his time.
On the other hand... maybe what I saw, had I paused to examine it more closely, would have proved to be a poster not for the original film but for a touring show which calls itself the Circus of Horrors. Judging by its web site, the show is inspired by the film. (And, now that I look at the web site, I see that the show was due to call at Eastbourne on 26 January.)
But I digress. Sort of. The fact is that the film, the touring show, and Mike Segretto's book all belong in the same tradition. The genre of trash horror, aimed at a low common denominator. Decent, well-brought-up people, people who know how to eat with their mouths shut, would never be seen dead buying a ticket for a circus of horrors -- in whatever medium. Although come to think of it, the living dead might be found in the queue.
Mike Segretto's book, in short, is not likely to have been produced over three years on an MFA degree. It is more likely to have been battered out, at least in part, after a beery evening spent with pals and a pile of old videos.
The story, basically, is that Wizzer Whale, a sort of drunken layabout come junk dealer, finds a headless body in the back yard. It is the body of a woman, and he falls in love with her. I will quote from the blurb: 'The problem is that after the corpse becomes reanimated by an ancient curse, it displays a distressing taste for blood. Before long, Wizzer and his monstrous bride are being pursued by a raging mob, an unstoppable TV reporter, and a homicidally jealous puppet.'
Well that's fair enough. It's all in remarkably bad taste, and your mother certainly wouldn't like it. I liked it enough to finish it. Mr Segretto has a agreeably loose and readable style (as do all these Contemporary Press guys; maybe it's infectious).
By the way, there is a reference on page 32 of this book to an actress called Karen Jamey, who played the creature in a series of Monster Lake movies. This is further proof, should any be needed, that Karen Jamey's memoirs (see yesterday) are, as she says, 110% accurate.
Tony O'Neill: Digging the Vein
Now I have to admit that I am not best qualified to judge this book. The vein referred to, as you have probably come to expect, is the vein that the junkie (is that word hopelessly out of date?) searches for in his anxiety to plunge the needle. And, since I have never so much as smoked a spliff (which is, if I am not out of date again) an English term for a marijuana cigarette, then, as I say, I am not really qualified to determine whether this is a good book of its kind or not. (Mine has been a very sheltered life, as you may recall from previous admissions of same.) But that Digging the Vein is a very good book, in the judgement of one non-addicted person, that I can certainly testify. It is well written and it tells its story economically and effectively.
What tradition is this one in? Well, I guess one forerunner is Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Eater. Which I haven't read. Then there's William Burroughs's first book, Junkie, which I read when it first appeared in the UK, nearly fifty years ago. (The book was published [as written by 'William Lee'] by Digit Books according to the British Library, 1957. But my copy was from Ace Books, which originally published it in the US in 1953. So did Digit import a few copies, or what??? But I digress; again.)
Junkie was a perfectly straightforward book, and very well written in my view. It is described (e.g. by the Wikipedia article on Burroughs) as a novel, but it was clearly based on first-hand experience. The world, however, was a much simpler place in the 1940s and '50s, even for those who came to depend on drugs. And so (if I remember correctly) the descriptions of drug-taking in Junkie are very mild compared with those in Digging the Vein.
I don't think, with the best will in the world, that I could describe Digging the Vein as a fun read. Pages 187 to 190 for instance, constitute as bleak a picture of the drug addict's life as you would ever wish to read.
As usual, I went looking for an author's web wite at this point, and found one. It turns out that, like his narrator, Tony O'Neill is an English keyboard player who went to LA and had his career 'derailed by heroin addiction, quickie marriages and crack abuse. While kicking methadone he started writing about his experiences on the periphery of the Hollywood Dream and he has been writing ever since.'
This is not a surprise. And those who are in search of a subject for PhD thesis could have a whale of a time figuring out whether Tony O'Neill's novel is more closely related to the actual events of his life than James Frey's famous book relates to his.
Of the three Contemporary Press books that I have read, and written about today and yesterday, this is much the most 'important', if you follow me. It is also, I suspect, in some mysterious way, the 'best written'. But it is also the least enjoyable. Go figure. If you ring me up in ten years' time (should I still be answering the phone) and tell me that this book has become a classic of its genre, then I shan't be in the least bit astonished.
Mike Segretto: The Bride of Trash
On a recent visit to Eastbourne, home of the staid and retired, I noticed, out of a corner of my eye, a poster for Circus of Horrors. Aha, I thought -- remembering the 1960 film of that name -- that poster can't have been there for 45 years, so someone remembers the old thing with affection. It must have become a cult movie.
The movie was, incidentally, written by George Baxt, who came to London to do the job. I was introduced to him, by a mutual friend, in the interval of Brendan Behan's The Hostage at Wyndham's Theatre. Baxt was an entirely commercial writer -- not a literary bone in him -- but he produced some entertaining stuff in his time.
On the other hand... maybe what I saw, had I paused to examine it more closely, would have proved to be a poster not for the original film but for a touring show which calls itself the Circus of Horrors. Judging by its web site, the show is inspired by the film. (And, now that I look at the web site, I see that the show was due to call at Eastbourne on 26 January.)
But I digress. Sort of. The fact is that the film, the touring show, and Mike Segretto's book all belong in the same tradition. The genre of trash horror, aimed at a low common denominator. Decent, well-brought-up people, people who know how to eat with their mouths shut, would never be seen dead buying a ticket for a circus of horrors -- in whatever medium. Although come to think of it, the living dead might be found in the queue.
Mike Segretto's book, in short, is not likely to have been produced over three years on an MFA degree. It is more likely to have been battered out, at least in part, after a beery evening spent with pals and a pile of old videos.
The story, basically, is that Wizzer Whale, a sort of drunken layabout come junk dealer, finds a headless body in the back yard. It is the body of a woman, and he falls in love with her. I will quote from the blurb: 'The problem is that after the corpse becomes reanimated by an ancient curse, it displays a distressing taste for blood. Before long, Wizzer and his monstrous bride are being pursued by a raging mob, an unstoppable TV reporter, and a homicidally jealous puppet.'
Well that's fair enough. It's all in remarkably bad taste, and your mother certainly wouldn't like it. I liked it enough to finish it. Mr Segretto has a agreeably loose and readable style (as do all these Contemporary Press guys; maybe it's infectious).
By the way, there is a reference on page 32 of this book to an actress called Karen Jamey, who played the creature in a series of Monster Lake movies. This is further proof, should any be needed, that Karen Jamey's memoirs (see yesterday) are, as she says, 110% accurate.
Tony O'Neill: Digging the Vein
Now I have to admit that I am not best qualified to judge this book. The vein referred to, as you have probably come to expect, is the vein that the junkie (is that word hopelessly out of date?) searches for in his anxiety to plunge the needle. And, since I have never so much as smoked a spliff (which is, if I am not out of date again) an English term for a marijuana cigarette, then, as I say, I am not really qualified to determine whether this is a good book of its kind or not. (Mine has been a very sheltered life, as you may recall from previous admissions of same.) But that Digging the Vein is a very good book, in the judgement of one non-addicted person, that I can certainly testify. It is well written and it tells its story economically and effectively.
What tradition is this one in? Well, I guess one forerunner is Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Eater. Which I haven't read. Then there's William Burroughs's first book, Junkie, which I read when it first appeared in the UK, nearly fifty years ago. (The book was published [as written by 'William Lee'] by Digit Books according to the British Library, 1957. But my copy was from Ace Books, which originally published it in the US in 1953. So did Digit import a few copies, or what??? But I digress; again.)
Junkie was a perfectly straightforward book, and very well written in my view. It is described (e.g. by the Wikipedia article on Burroughs) as a novel, but it was clearly based on first-hand experience. The world, however, was a much simpler place in the 1940s and '50s, even for those who came to depend on drugs. And so (if I remember correctly) the descriptions of drug-taking in Junkie are very mild compared with those in Digging the Vein.
I don't think, with the best will in the world, that I could describe Digging the Vein as a fun read. Pages 187 to 190 for instance, constitute as bleak a picture of the drug addict's life as you would ever wish to read.
There are moments of humour in this book, assuredly, but overall it is a serious and, frankly, slightly depressing piece of work. The first-person narrator, by the way, is an English keyboard player making a life (? or death) for himself in Los Angeles. At one point, he finds himself playing with the Electric Kool-Aid, a band which rang a bell even with me. Try Tom Wolfe for details.I had to loosen my jeans to get a working vein, a long blue one running up the outside of my left thigh. I noticed Genesis rolling her top down, exposing one white tit to the daylight. I watched her silently as she appraised her breast in the same way that a butcher might examine a piece of fresh meat for imperfections. Then, finding her spot, she squeezed the flesh hard with her left hand and slowly slid the needle in... 'Its the goddamn crank,' she explained. 'Fucks your veins up real quick. God knows what those bastards mix it with.'
As usual, I went looking for an author's web wite at this point, and found one. It turns out that, like his narrator, Tony O'Neill is an English keyboard player who went to LA and had his career 'derailed by heroin addiction, quickie marriages and crack abuse. While kicking methadone he started writing about his experiences on the periphery of the Hollywood Dream and he has been writing ever since.'
This is not a surprise. And those who are in search of a subject for PhD thesis could have a whale of a time figuring out whether Tony O'Neill's novel is more closely related to the actual events of his life than James Frey's famous book relates to his.
Of the three Contemporary Press books that I have read, and written about today and yesterday, this is much the most 'important', if you follow me. It is also, I suspect, in some mysterious way, the 'best written'. But it is also the least enjoyable. Go figure. If you ring me up in ten years' time (should I still be answering the phone) and tell me that this book has become a classic of its genre, then I shan't be in the least bit astonished.
Arctic Monkeys lead the way?
Here in the sleepy old UK a band called Arctic Monkeys has been quietly proving that the music business has changed dramatically in the last few years. To be brief, they have got themselves a number-one hit record without benefit of a big record company behind them. Just free giveaways on the web, live gigs, and word of mouth. Or, to be more precise, word of web.
Val Landi sees this as a harbinger of publishing's future. So do I. But I don't think it's going to happen quite as fast or be quite as dramatic as some.
Val Landi sees this as a harbinger of publishing's future. So do I. But I don't think it's going to happen quite as fast or be quite as dramatic as some.
John Barlow: Intoxicated
Just as every day is someone's birthday, so, I suppose, every day is the day when someone's novel is published. Except, possibly, Sundays. And Christmas Day. Although Muslims probably publish their novels on Christmas Day, just for the hell of it. Anyway, you get the idea.
February 7 was publication day for John Barlow's novel Intoxicated. William Morrow/HarperCollins in the US, no less. Not one of your back-street POD jobs this. Intoxicated is described as A Novel of Money, Madness, and the Invention of the World's Favorite Soft Drink. And no, I don't think it's that ghastly brown, bubbly muck that you're thinking of. Though it's similar. The setting is Yorkshire, in the nineteenth century.
John Barlow has an interesting past for you to contemplate. John is one of those rare writers who emerge from the Paris Review. And in his case he went the traditional route -- over the transom and into the slushpile -- unagented, and unannounced by MFA tutors. On his blog he begins to wonder guiltily as to whether this was the result of undiluted talent, shining with a pure and brilliant light which led the slush-pile readers unfailingly to pick it out -- or whether, perhaps, sheer chance/luck/randomness had something to do with it
Ah, well, gee, shucks, since you ask John, and put a gun to my head so to speak, I have to admit that I think chance may have had something to do with it. But I have never, in all my born days, said that chance/luck/happenstance was enough on its own. You do need talent. I have merely pointed out, more than once, in times past, that talent alone does not suffice. Or, to put it another way, one of the many talents that you need to break into print is a talent for being in the right place at the right time with the right book. And so forth.
Intoxicated got a longish review in the Washington Post last Sunday. You have to register to read it in the WP, but you can find it on the Amazon.com entry. Minus the paragraphs.
February 7 was publication day for John Barlow's novel Intoxicated. William Morrow/HarperCollins in the US, no less. Not one of your back-street POD jobs this. Intoxicated is described as A Novel of Money, Madness, and the Invention of the World's Favorite Soft Drink. And no, I don't think it's that ghastly brown, bubbly muck that you're thinking of. Though it's similar. The setting is Yorkshire, in the nineteenth century.
John Barlow has an interesting past for you to contemplate. John is one of those rare writers who emerge from the Paris Review. And in his case he went the traditional route -- over the transom and into the slushpile -- unagented, and unannounced by MFA tutors. On his blog he begins to wonder guiltily as to whether this was the result of undiluted talent, shining with a pure and brilliant light which led the slush-pile readers unfailingly to pick it out -- or whether, perhaps, sheer chance/luck/randomness had something to do with it
Ah, well, gee, shucks, since you ask John, and put a gun to my head so to speak, I have to admit that I think chance may have had something to do with it. But I have never, in all my born days, said that chance/luck/happenstance was enough on its own. You do need talent. I have merely pointed out, more than once, in times past, that talent alone does not suffice. Or, to put it another way, one of the many talents that you need to break into print is a talent for being in the right place at the right time with the right book. And so forth.
Intoxicated got a longish review in the Washington Post last Sunday. You have to register to read it in the WP, but you can find it on the Amazon.com entry. Minus the paragraphs.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Contemporary Press
The Contemporary Press distributes bookmarkers which carry the company's name, web site address, and the slogan 'Fuck Literature'. Oh, and there's a picture of a bird in a short skirt carrying a gun.
Which kind of tells you the way things are going. 'When Big Publishing dies', it says in another place, 'we're the cockroaches who will devour their bones and dance on their graves.' Right on, brothers. I may join in, if I'm allowed out that late.
The web site adds to the picture. 'Raw words, well done', says another slogan. And the company describes itself as 'publishing future cult classics'.
The genre which is chiefly on offer here -- the way I see it -- is pulp fiction of the old school. Fiction which is in marked contrast to the genteel outpourings of the MFA mob.
'We've lost much of what made pulp fiction great', says Jay Brida, the publisher. 'We loved pulp for its irreverence, its dark (sometimes bitter, sometimes funny) mirror of society, its tittering embrace of the kink and defiance of the pious conventions of society. These attitudes can be found throughout the media, yet are conspicuously buried in modern literature. So we say, "Fuck Literature." Of course, we mean it both as a statement of contempt and a descriptive designation of our books.'
In addition to Jay Brida, there are half a dozen other founder members of the company. Two of them are women. Of one it is said, 'buy her a tequila and she might just make out with you'. And the other, Jess Dukes, is featured on the cover of her book, Down Girl, sitting on the loo with her knickers around her ankles. (Tastefully done, though.)
Well, by now you may have lost interest. This may all sound relentlessly crude, vulgar, and just generally awful. But that, I think, would be missing the point. The founder members of this company are said to be writers/designers who are less than fulfilled in their day jobs and decided to take matters into their own hands and produce some ridiculous, entertaining books.' Emphasise the entertaining.
Not, I would add, that these guys are just playing at what they do. Far from it; they are pretty serious (and also talented). These people are much more intelligent -- and, yes, sensitive -- than they might seem from the in-your-face stuff which greets you at the door.
I can say that with some confidence because I've read three of the books which appear on the Contemporary Press's (shortish, so far) list. Here are my brief comments on each of them:
Jeffrey Dinsmore: I, An Actress
Subtitled 'The Autobiography of Karen Jamey', the title page tells us that the book was 'told to Jeffrey Dinsmore' -- a writer who, incidentally, has also published as Rory Carmichael. (Concentrate now, this gets tricky.) And another prelim page tells us that 'This is a work of fiction.' And indeed it is. But it is one of Mr Dinsmore's little conceits that he writes a blog as Rory Carmichael, and that on that blog Miss Jamey is allowed to give us her take on the James Frey affair.
According to Miss (or is it Ms) Jamey, James Frey was an obvious fake from day one. She mocks, for instance, his claim that he used to smoke 50 keys of crack a day, and that he once put so much cocaine up his ass that he turned purple. No one, Miss Jamey assures us, speaks of 'keys' of crack. And as for putting stuff up your ass, well, she tells us, from personal experience, that this has no effect whatsoever.
Ms Jamey goes on to say that 'my autobiography, which is available at fine stores everywhere and right here, is 110% factual. It is more factual than the facts. It is certainly more factual than anything James Frey has to say, and, I'll add, at least 55% more entertaining.'
See, I told you it got a little complicated.
Anyway, what of the damn book, since I went to the trouble of reading it. Well, Karen Jamey, we learn, was born Karen Hitler, in 1922. Hitler? Perhaps a distant relative; the German media certainly think so at one point. Anyway, young Karen turns out to be a remarkably articulate person. On the other hand, maybe her 'ghost' has made her more articulate than she actually is. And she, or her ghost, certainly has a pedantic way with words. E.g. 'I nervously waited outside the door, not quite knowing into what I was getting.'
The story, to begin with, is fairly familiar from a thousand autobiographies of famous or long-forgotten actresses. Early hardship, the search for a break, experiences on the road, and so forth. But round about page 60 or so the book begins to look a little different from the average example of its genre.
When a gangster tells Karen that he can tell that she feels pain inside, she denies it. 'I had no pain inside me. What did I care. Save for a few years of looking like a Halloween costume, a horrible tour experience, the death of my grandparents, the loss of my mother, the complete absence of friends, and my burgeoning propensity for alcoholism, I had led a charmed life.'
A statement which encouraged me to read further.
Much of the action takes place in the 1930s, including, of course, an account of making films with an eccentric European director. Were the book not soaked in such convincing period detail, and had I not Ms Jamey's personal assurance that her book is 110% factual, I might have begun to suspect a certain degree of exaggeration at this point. But as Ms Jamey remarks, 'Life is nothing but intemperate nonsense mixed with crushing disappointment and moments of despair.' A thought which she attributes to either Freud or Charles Schultz; she always gets the two of them mixed up.
Later in the book our heroine succumbs to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and alcoholism, spends two years in a psychiatric hospital, and for nearly twenty years does no acting. But eventually she finds happiness and a kind of serenity.
Now how, and why, you will be wondering, does a powerful book of this calibre come to be published by an obscure small press based in, er, Brooklyn. (I think.) Well, the answer to that may lie in another question, one that a mainstream editor would have asked himself, scratching his head thoughtfully. To whom would a book like this appeal?
And the answer to that is probably the kind of person who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure B movies. Someone who can tell you the name of every character ever played by Ingrid Pitt or Kitten Natividad. One of those sad, nerdy, geeky types. (And I speak as one who, somewhere, possibly in a box in the garage or the loft, has a signed nude picture of Kitten Natividad. 'To Michael, with love', it says. Don't ask. Just be assured that she signs all her pictures that way. Or that's what I tell Mrs GOB, anyway.)
Well, I enjoyed I, An Actress. Let's face it, it's not a world-beater. but it's a professional piece of work. It was fun.
Tomorrow, because I've run out of time for today, a couple more Contemporary Press books. Oh, and before I forget, the Contemporary Press also turns up on a web site called Uberbelle.com, a place where you can buy fine-art prints of nude fashion models. No, I don't understand the connection either. But I quite liked the pictures.
Which kind of tells you the way things are going. 'When Big Publishing dies', it says in another place, 'we're the cockroaches who will devour their bones and dance on their graves.' Right on, brothers. I may join in, if I'm allowed out that late.
The web site adds to the picture. 'Raw words, well done', says another slogan. And the company describes itself as 'publishing future cult classics'.
The genre which is chiefly on offer here -- the way I see it -- is pulp fiction of the old school. Fiction which is in marked contrast to the genteel outpourings of the MFA mob.
'We've lost much of what made pulp fiction great', says Jay Brida, the publisher. 'We loved pulp for its irreverence, its dark (sometimes bitter, sometimes funny) mirror of society, its tittering embrace of the kink and defiance of the pious conventions of society. These attitudes can be found throughout the media, yet are conspicuously buried in modern literature. So we say, "Fuck Literature." Of course, we mean it both as a statement of contempt and a descriptive designation of our books.'
In addition to Jay Brida, there are half a dozen other founder members of the company. Two of them are women. Of one it is said, 'buy her a tequila and she might just make out with you'. And the other, Jess Dukes, is featured on the cover of her book, Down Girl, sitting on the loo with her knickers around her ankles. (Tastefully done, though.)
Well, by now you may have lost interest. This may all sound relentlessly crude, vulgar, and just generally awful. But that, I think, would be missing the point. The founder members of this company are said to be writers/designers who are less than fulfilled in their day jobs and decided to take matters into their own hands and produce some ridiculous, entertaining books.' Emphasise the entertaining.
Not, I would add, that these guys are just playing at what they do. Far from it; they are pretty serious (and also talented). These people are much more intelligent -- and, yes, sensitive -- than they might seem from the in-your-face stuff which greets you at the door.
I can say that with some confidence because I've read three of the books which appear on the Contemporary Press's (shortish, so far) list. Here are my brief comments on each of them:
Jeffrey Dinsmore: I, An Actress
Subtitled 'The Autobiography of Karen Jamey', the title page tells us that the book was 'told to Jeffrey Dinsmore' -- a writer who, incidentally, has also published as Rory Carmichael. (Concentrate now, this gets tricky.) And another prelim page tells us that 'This is a work of fiction.' And indeed it is. But it is one of Mr Dinsmore's little conceits that he writes a blog as Rory Carmichael, and that on that blog Miss Jamey is allowed to give us her take on the James Frey affair.
According to Miss (or is it Ms) Jamey, James Frey was an obvious fake from day one. She mocks, for instance, his claim that he used to smoke 50 keys of crack a day, and that he once put so much cocaine up his ass that he turned purple. No one, Miss Jamey assures us, speaks of 'keys' of crack. And as for putting stuff up your ass, well, she tells us, from personal experience, that this has no effect whatsoever.
Ms Jamey goes on to say that 'my autobiography, which is available at fine stores everywhere and right here, is 110% factual. It is more factual than the facts. It is certainly more factual than anything James Frey has to say, and, I'll add, at least 55% more entertaining.'
See, I told you it got a little complicated.
Anyway, what of the damn book, since I went to the trouble of reading it. Well, Karen Jamey, we learn, was born Karen Hitler, in 1922. Hitler? Perhaps a distant relative; the German media certainly think so at one point. Anyway, young Karen turns out to be a remarkably articulate person. On the other hand, maybe her 'ghost' has made her more articulate than she actually is. And she, or her ghost, certainly has a pedantic way with words. E.g. 'I nervously waited outside the door, not quite knowing into what I was getting.'
The story, to begin with, is fairly familiar from a thousand autobiographies of famous or long-forgotten actresses. Early hardship, the search for a break, experiences on the road, and so forth. But round about page 60 or so the book begins to look a little different from the average example of its genre.
When a gangster tells Karen that he can tell that she feels pain inside, she denies it. 'I had no pain inside me. What did I care. Save for a few years of looking like a Halloween costume, a horrible tour experience, the death of my grandparents, the loss of my mother, the complete absence of friends, and my burgeoning propensity for alcoholism, I had led a charmed life.'
A statement which encouraged me to read further.
Much of the action takes place in the 1930s, including, of course, an account of making films with an eccentric European director. Were the book not soaked in such convincing period detail, and had I not Ms Jamey's personal assurance that her book is 110% factual, I might have begun to suspect a certain degree of exaggeration at this point. But as Ms Jamey remarks, 'Life is nothing but intemperate nonsense mixed with crushing disappointment and moments of despair.' A thought which she attributes to either Freud or Charles Schultz; she always gets the two of them mixed up.
Later in the book our heroine succumbs to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and alcoholism, spends two years in a psychiatric hospital, and for nearly twenty years does no acting. But eventually she finds happiness and a kind of serenity.
Now how, and why, you will be wondering, does a powerful book of this calibre come to be published by an obscure small press based in, er, Brooklyn. (I think.) Well, the answer to that may lie in another question, one that a mainstream editor would have asked himself, scratching his head thoughtfully. To whom would a book like this appeal?
And the answer to that is probably the kind of person who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure B movies. Someone who can tell you the name of every character ever played by Ingrid Pitt or Kitten Natividad. One of those sad, nerdy, geeky types. (And I speak as one who, somewhere, possibly in a box in the garage or the loft, has a signed nude picture of Kitten Natividad. 'To Michael, with love', it says. Don't ask. Just be assured that she signs all her pictures that way. Or that's what I tell Mrs GOB, anyway.)
Well, I enjoyed I, An Actress. Let's face it, it's not a world-beater. but it's a professional piece of work. It was fun.
Tomorrow, because I've run out of time for today, a couple more Contemporary Press books. Oh, and before I forget, the Contemporary Press also turns up on a web site called Uberbelle.com, a place where you can buy fine-art prints of nude fashion models. No, I don't understand the connection either. But I quite liked the pictures.
Possibly not one to enter
The latest edition of Dave Langford's Ansible newsletter mentions a short-story competition run by SFX magazine which may not offer quite the ideal terms and conditions. The original ran like this:
Dave adds that, after protests from Gollancz, who are co-publishing the book of winners, the terms were amended to 'something less toxic'. If you care enough to bother, see the SFX web site for further details.'Upon submission of their stories to the address set out at rule 2, entrants irrevocably assign to Future Publishing Limited all intellectual property rights that they have in any part of the world in their stories and waive all their moral rights.'
Discounting and Wottakars
It's invidious, I know, but occasionally a comment on an earlier post seems to me to be sufficiently interesting as to warrant being fished out and posted on the front page. So it is with Clive Keeble's comments on discounting and the proposed Waterstone's/Ottakar's merger. Clive is a small independent bookseller who actually favours the merger, which is unusual. Here's what he says:
Meanwhile, press reports indicate that Tim Waterstone himself is planning to buy back his old company. Gosh, I wish I had a pound for every time I've read that story. But sooner or later it will probably turn out to be true.Amazon worldwide sold 1.6 million copies of the latest Harry Potter - surprise, surprise this did not return them a profit.
"Turnover is vanity : profit is sanity"
Without the advantage of listing and commission income from over a million 3rd party sellers Amazon would be unable to deliberately price point new books at a level which does not show them a profit.
In the short term their customers are the winners : however, retail history shows that such discounting will always have knock-on business failures, and often in the long-term a reduced catalogue selection.
As a rural independent bookshop owner I have made a submission to the Competition Commission re Waterstone's acquisition of Ottakar's. Me, I'm strongly for the takeover as without a vibrant retail bookshop backbone, via a resurgent Waterstone's, the supermarkets and Amazon are going to control the UK booktrade to suit their shareholder's interests.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Golden oldies triumph again -- maybe
The Times has a piece about the publishing plans of Nonsuch, a company based in Stroud (i.e. outside London) and part of the Tempus Group. Nonsuch intend to republish a few authors who were huge sellers around the time of Dickens but who have long since dropped out of sight.
The thinking seems to be: these books were once huge sellers, even bigger than Dickens. Dickens is still a big seller. So, these writers could also be huge sellers, all over again. All we have to do is set them before the public.
Chief candidate for this resuscitation process is one Judge Haliburton, once the literary 'lion of London' and originator of such quips as 'the early bird gets the worm' and 'getting blood out of a stone'.
Hmm. Well, we shall see. There are indeed lots of books which were once huge sellers but have now dropped out of sight. And the reasons why they have disappeared are often mysterious. But they have something to do with the style in which they are written, the assumptions on which they are based, and changes in the way we do things. It does not by any means follow that just setting them before the public once again will produce any interest whatever.
All of which is loosely related to a long-held theory of mine that the so-called classics become classics not because of any supernatural skill or genius on the part of their authors (hugely talented though they no doubt were), but because, as a result of a set of entirely unpredictable circumstances, these books somehow remain able to speak to us, even after all these years.
In other words, those writers who survive the test of time are not, and never were, 'better' in any meaningful sense than those who were also all the critical/commercial rage at the same time. They just survive and become revered as a result of randomness: a factor which, as I may have remarked before, plays a significant part in publishing.
The thinking seems to be: these books were once huge sellers, even bigger than Dickens. Dickens is still a big seller. So, these writers could also be huge sellers, all over again. All we have to do is set them before the public.
Chief candidate for this resuscitation process is one Judge Haliburton, once the literary 'lion of London' and originator of such quips as 'the early bird gets the worm' and 'getting blood out of a stone'.
Hmm. Well, we shall see. There are indeed lots of books which were once huge sellers but have now dropped out of sight. And the reasons why they have disappeared are often mysterious. But they have something to do with the style in which they are written, the assumptions on which they are based, and changes in the way we do things. It does not by any means follow that just setting them before the public once again will produce any interest whatever.
All of which is loosely related to a long-held theory of mine that the so-called classics become classics not because of any supernatural skill or genius on the part of their authors (hugely talented though they no doubt were), but because, as a result of a set of entirely unpredictable circumstances, these books somehow remain able to speak to us, even after all these years.
In other words, those writers who survive the test of time are not, and never were, 'better' in any meaningful sense than those who were also all the critical/commercial rage at the same time. They just survive and become revered as a result of randomness: a factor which, as I may have remarked before, plays a significant part in publishing.
Finn Harvor and the screen-novel
Well, well. Finn Harvor has an interesting take on the crisis (Crisis? What crisis?) which afflicts literary publishing.
Finn has a blog (No! Oh yes.) and its title is The Screenplay-Novel Manifestos. Like many a literary type, Finn goes in for metaphors, and the one he chooses here is Katrina. So, in part one of the specific posts entitled the Screen-novel Manifestos, he (I assume Finn is a he) sets out his response to the crisis: it is develop new ways of thinking, and, possibly, new -- or newish -- art forms:
My only comments so far are that the blog still has a few technical teething problems. The excerpts from the screenplay-novel 'The Runner' don't come out right in Internet Explorer -- they show the html. And although the script looked OK in Mozilla at first, it also slipped back into html mode when I clicked back and forth on various posts. So something ain't right somewhere (I suspect). And then there are a couple of Stills without Scripts (i.e. photographs) which just haven't come out right at all. The tonal values are all wrong. Unless, of course, one of the revolutionary aspects of this new art form is that you're not supposed to make out what it's all about.
However, early days no doubt. All revolutions need an oil-can at the start.
Finn has a blog (No! Oh yes.) and its title is The Screenplay-Novel Manifestos. Like many a literary type, Finn goes in for metaphors, and the one he chooses here is Katrina. So, in part one of the specific posts entitled the Screen-novel Manifestos, he (I assume Finn is a he) sets out his response to the crisis: it is develop new ways of thinking, and, possibly, new -- or newish -- art forms:
We will try to anticipate the next storm! Why not new forms, new techniques? Perhaps the levees and break-waters can be strengthened! And so we will do our best, we writers of a literature that seems impractical! We will attempt to be -- well, we attempt to be novel! We will write books that read like screen-plays! We will use pictures, drawings, unveiled autobiography! But please, please ... listen to us as we speak: a moment of indulgence... a small gesture of understanding....Well, this is all very intriguing, if not 100% per cent original. (Don't ask me who it reminds me of, because the old memory is not what it was, but I know I've seen similar stuff somewhere -- proposals for a mulitmedia novel or some such.) And it will be interesting to see what emerges.
We are not nobodies! We want to build another house to live in!
We want to keep living!!!
My only comments so far are that the blog still has a few technical teething problems. The excerpts from the screenplay-novel 'The Runner' don't come out right in Internet Explorer -- they show the html. And although the script looked OK in Mozilla at first, it also slipped back into html mode when I clicked back and forth on various posts. So something ain't right somewhere (I suspect). And then there are a couple of Stills without Scripts (i.e. photographs) which just haven't come out right at all. The tonal values are all wrong. Unless, of course, one of the revolutionary aspects of this new art form is that you're not supposed to make out what it's all about.
However, early days no doubt. All revolutions need an oil-can at the start.
Let's get this clear -- is terrorism a suitable subject for a thriller or not?
Several bloggers have picked up on an article in the Seattle something-or-other which features an interview with Greg Bear.
Greg Bear is a pretty well-established writer in the thriller/science fiction category, so he was no doubt surprised when his latest techno-thriller Quantico -- set in the near future -- was rejected by his US editor, though the Brits bought it readily enough (published by HarperCollins last November).
Quantico has a plot which 'depicts an increasingly grim world, with people being able to manufacture deadly biological agents in their basements. "For years [says Bear], even before 9/11, I've been trying to warn that the threat from amateur biolabs will ultimately turn out to be far more troublesome than leakage from military labs -- perhaps even more costly and deadly than nuclear terrorism.'
So, on the face of it, this rejection of Greg Bear's latest would seem to echo the experience of Val Landi and others, who are finding US editors to be decidedly resistant to terrorism-based novels these days. Too close to home, it is claimed. Nasty stuff. Readers want novels about cute little puppies and romance, and all like that.
On the other hand, Greg is able to report that his book has been picked by the (US) Book of the Month Club, the Mystery Guild, and others. So, no real unanimity of opinion there then. (Nothing new in that, either.)
Not surprisingly, this is a matter of some interest to Steve Clackson, who has a book of this kind of his own to sell.
Greg Bear is a pretty well-established writer in the thriller/science fiction category, so he was no doubt surprised when his latest techno-thriller Quantico -- set in the near future -- was rejected by his US editor, though the Brits bought it readily enough (published by HarperCollins last November).
Quantico has a plot which 'depicts an increasingly grim world, with people being able to manufacture deadly biological agents in their basements. "For years [says Bear], even before 9/11, I've been trying to warn that the threat from amateur biolabs will ultimately turn out to be far more troublesome than leakage from military labs -- perhaps even more costly and deadly than nuclear terrorism.'
So, on the face of it, this rejection of Greg Bear's latest would seem to echo the experience of Val Landi and others, who are finding US editors to be decidedly resistant to terrorism-based novels these days. Too close to home, it is claimed. Nasty stuff. Readers want novels about cute little puppies and romance, and all like that.
On the other hand, Greg is able to report that his book has been picked by the (US) Book of the Month Club, the Mystery Guild, and others. So, no real unanimity of opinion there then. (Nothing new in that, either.)
Not surprisingly, this is a matter of some interest to Steve Clackson, who has a book of this kind of his own to sell.
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