I’m happy to share a guest post by one of our publisher reps, Jon Mayes. He has been in the book business all of his adult life, both as a bookstore owner and as a publisher’s representative. Jon visits our store several times a year to keep us up to date on all the best books from Perseus. One of our favorites this year is Jamie Quatro‘s new book I Want to Show You More which is also our First Editions Club pick for March. Here’s what Jon says:

Since part of my job is to represent our publishers and authors to my accounts, I find it often helps if I can get to know the writers personally, especially if they live in the South. When I met author Jamie Quatro for coffee in Chattanooga, I asked her to tell me a little about herself and how it came about that Grove/Atlantic was publishing her new book. Little did I know then that magic was involved, and it was just meant to be.

“I was at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference—a dizzying and inspiring twelve days of workshops, panels, lectures, readings. One of the conference highlights was a panel in memory of Barry Hannah, the man whose work made me want to be a writer in the first place. I’d read everything; published articles about him in the Oxford American; gave a graduate lecture at Bennington on his “pornographic” syntax. Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, Faulkner, Hannah: my literary hall of fame.

At the last minute, I invited Barry’s son Po (a friend) to drive down from Knoxville so he could hear the panelists—Bob Shacochis, Christine Schutt, Erin McGraw, William Gay, and Tom Franklin. Po hadn’t been to Sewanee in years, certainly not since his Dad had passed away. He told me he was heading down to Oxford that day anyhow, to attend Dean Faulkner’s funeral, but said he’d have a bit of time to show me some of his dad’s old stomping grounds.

Po walked in with William Gay and Bob Shacochis. The four of us stood in a circle; one of my Bennington mentors, Jill McCorkle, came over to join us. Po reached into his pocket and placed something in my hand. “I think Dad would want you to have this,” he said. I was holding Barry’s gold-plated cigarette lighter. It was a hushed and holy moment. Light from the magician on high.

I’m pretty sure that’s where the Grove magic started.

The next morning, as had become my habit, I walked to the Blue Chair Café for coffee. I sat at one of the small tables outside and started to read the day’s workshop stories. A few minutes later, this gorgeous woman – long, thick hair, big smile, slender, athletic build—sat down beside me. When she took a manuscript out of her bag, I figured she was a writer. We made small talk. I told her I was there for the conference, and she said she was too, but that was it. We both returned to the pages in front of us.

Later that morning, I went to the publishing panel and found out the woman was Elisabeth Schmitz from Grove/Atlantic. She and Gary Fisketjon from Knopf spoke on the panel together; it turned out they were both regulars at Sewanee. I ran into Elisabeth twice more that day. In both instances, we were alone—astonishing, given the number of writers at the conference. We never talked about my work, or hers. I don’t think she even knew I wrote fiction. I mostly wanted to ask her how she kept her arms so toned.

Two months later my agent, Anna Stein, was ready to go out with my collection. She sent me a list of editors she wanted to send the manuscript to. I told Anna how much I’d liked Elisabeth; Anna added her to the list. The day after she sent out the manuscript, I left for a two-week residency at the MacDowell Colony. I figured I wouldn’t hear anything for at least a few weeks. But in the Atlanta airport, waiting to board the plane to Manchester, I checked my email one last time—and found out the book was going to auction. It happened that fast.

A few days later I met my agent in New York City. We had meetings set up with the bidding houses—I wanted to meet the editors in person. Grove was our last meeting. We walked up the stairs (the Grove offices are above a Bikram yoga studio) and stood in the main office, looking at the books on the wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves.

When Elisabeth came out and saw me, she looked slightly stunned. My agent introduced us; I shook her hand.

I met you at Sewanee, I said.

Yes, I remember, she said. So this book is yours?

I sat on the couch in Elisabeth’s office. And there was Hannah: a picture of him (and Jeanette Winterson, among others) on the wall behind Elisabeth’s desk; Long, Last, Happy on her shelves.

I’m in Barry’s house, I thought.

I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me you had a collection, when we were at Sewanee, Elisabeth said.

I don’t remember how I answered her. I must have said something about how it felt uncouth to try to sell myself like that. But the mystic in me wants to believe I didn’t say anything because that would have ruined the surprise of that moment, sitting there in her office; Barry looking down, a fluke thunderstorm raging outside.

Of course, the rational part of me still says: coincidence.

By the time I left Grove, the storm had blown over. The village streets were wet and glinting in the late afternoon sunlight. Elisabeth walked me out, pointed me in the direction of the subway station, gave me a hug. Before heading uptown, I wandered around the Strand.

There was Barry again.

When Grove won the auction, it felt like coming home.

See the original post from Jon Mayes’ blog.

Don’t miss Jamie Quatro on Monday the 25th for a signing (5:00) and reading (5:30).

Also see: Short Story Champions: George Saunders, Ron Rash and now Jamie Quatro

I read and loved The Great Gatsby while in high school and then found out that F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of my Dad’s favorites too.  I went to his library and proceeded to ready everything I could get my hands on.  I even had two fair fish that I named F. Scott and Zelda.   I was absolutely thrilled when I found out this novel was coming out.  The pub date is March 26 so be ready to come by the bookstore and pick one up!! 

Therese Anne Fowler does a great job in  Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald of describing life in the “Roaring 20’s”.  You are invited to glamorous parties from New York to Paris with some of the famous names and faces of the time…Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Cole Porter and yes, the “golden couple”, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.  We also get a sneak peek into the behind the scenes lives of Scott and Zelda and soon learn that not everything is “golden”.  In the beginning everything was grand but then Scott’s excessive drinking soon overtakes his writing and Zelda’s feelings of repressed creativity comes between them and the marriage is soon in a downward spiral.

While this is a work of fiction, Therese Anne Fowler says in the afterward that she did do a lot of research into the lives of the Fitzgeralds but did have to come up with scenarios to explain what actually happened such as the animosity between Ernest Hemingway and Zelda Fitzgerald among others.  If you are a fan of the time period and/or enjoyed reading such books as The Paris Wife, The Chaperone and Loving Frank then I highly recommend Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald.

Because I’ve been a lame reader this year and haven’t read much yet, I’ve decided to blog about what plan to read in the near future.  Here’s what’s on my end table:

 

We Others by Steven Millhauser.  This is on deck because Adie said this is a must read.

How Should A Person Be? by Sheila Heti whom I can’t get enough of.

There Once Lived A Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband, and He Hanged Himself by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya.  Her previous book of short stories was quite amazing.

The Love Machine by Jacqueline Susann, author of Valley of the Dolls (one of my all time favorites).

Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell.  I can’t wait to get into this one as her two previous books blew my mind.

There are a couple of other books that are also on deck but haven’t made it to my end table yet:

The Last Girlfriend on Earth by Simon Rich whose books are hilarious.

Middle Men by Jim Gavin because who can resist a cover like that?

There are quite a few short story collections in this pile.  I suppose I’m out to have a short story kind of year.

by Zita

The first time I read Karen Russell, I didn’t really understand what I was reading. Were stories allowed to be told this way? Magical and surreal, but still so heavily grounded in reality that the reader couldn’t help but feel the gravity of the character’s predicaments? Karen Russell’s highly anticipated new collection of short stories, Vampires in the Lemon Grove has gotten favorable reviews in The New York Times. In fact, the only bad reviews have been that the stories are good, but Karen Russell could do better.

The stories are diverse in their strangeness, always bordering on hilarity, but almost too serious to be funny. In the title story, a vampire struggles to meet his wife’s needs (he is too frightened to sleep in the cave at night with the other bats, he just wants to drink the tart juice of the lemons in the grove). In “The Barn at the End of Our Term,” past United States presidents are finding themselves reincarnated as horses–

‘I’m not dead…’ Eisenhower says. ‘I’m incognito. The Secret Service must have found some way to hide me here, until such time as I can return to my body and resume governance of this country. I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I’m no horse.’

–and in “The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis,” four boys’ seemingly harmless prank comes back to haunt them. Don’t be mistaken, Karen Russell’s stories are not gothic horror stories, rather the characters just bump into odd twists of life which cause them to have to make difficult decisions.

My favorite story in this collection is “Reeling for the Empire.” Japanese girls are being collected from rural villages to spin silk, but what they think is just a year of factory work, is a life-changing experience. Literally. They are turned into silkworms. The silk coils in their stomach and is pulled from their fingertips in long, silky strands.

Karen Russell’s short stories are a great escape from reality, although I can’t guarantee that the escape will be any less real than life.

And if you haven’t yet read the Pulitzer-Prize finalist, Swamplandia, you better get onboard.

There is no way that I am not going to pick up a book with the title, A Natural History of Dragons, and then when I read it was a memoir of Lady Isabella Trent, “the world’s preeminent dragon naturalist” how could I put it down?  Well, I did eventually put it down about 3 days after I picked it up!

Much to her mother’s chagrin, Isabella was always interested in nature especially winged creatures and growing up in the countryside of Scirland provided much to observe.  Her collections contained everything from winged insects, beetles, feathers to Sparklings.  Being the only daughter in a family of six she was constantly getting into things with her brothers that her parents did not approve of though secretly her father was very proud to have such a smart daughter.

One day after being caught dissecting a dove (she does point out it was already dead when she found it) her father sat her down for a long talk about what is ladylike behavior. Realizing that he wouldn’t be able to suppress Isabella’s interest he gave her a book, Gotherham’s Avian Anatomy, with strict orders not to let her mother see it.  Isabella’s interests are constantly getting her in trouble and finally her Mother puts her foot down. She is very concerned that no one will want to marry Isabella if she doesn’t start acting more like a lady.

Years later, Isabella and her husband, Jacob, are given the opportunity to go on an expedition to study dragons.  Isabella has talked her way into going along because she can draw. She convinced Lord Hilford, who organized the expedition, that she would be an asset.  When they reach Vystrana, where they will be studying the Rock-Wyrm Dragon, they come to realize that something is not quite right.  The dragons are showing signs of irregular behavior and the small group is determined to find out what the cause is.  Little do they know that they will be caught up in a web of corruption that they might not be able to escape.

This volume of the memoirs of Lady Trent is of course very early in her life and I cannot wait for the future volumes to be published.  I am positive that Isabella has not left anything out or exaggerated her life experiences at all.  In fact she tells us:

“One benefit of being an old woman now, and moreover one who has been called a ‘national treasure’ is that there are very few who can tell me what I may and may not write.”

“Be warned, then:  the collected volumes of this series will contain frozen mountains, foetid swamps, hostile foreigners, hostile fellow countrymen, the occasional hostile family member, bad decisions, misadventures in orienteering, diseases of an unromantic sort, and a plenitude of mud.  You continue at your own risk.  It is not for the faint of heart-no more so than the study of dragons itself.  But such study offers rewards beyond compare: to stand in a dragon’s presence, even for the briefest of moments-even at the risk of one’s life-is a delight that, once experienced, can never be forgotten.  If my humble words convey even a fraction of that wonder, I will rest content.”

If I could I would say to Lady Isabella Trent that I am not ‘faint of heart’ and I am ready to experience more.  If you feel that you too are strong of heart and ready then please (when you have a few days to spare) pick up A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent by Marie Brennan and vicariously go on the adventure of a lifetime!

House of Earth, a previously unpublished novel by folkartist Woody Guthrie, has been released this month by Infinitum Nihil (Johnny Depp’s publishing imprint with HarperCollins). This novel was finished by Guthrie some 66 years ago. It was never published and though the reasons are not clear why Guthrie didn’t follow through with the publishing process, it is clear that he did want this for the public <his design for the book was that it be turned into a film. He sent it to a producer, but it never panned out>. Maybe this was disheartening? The truth of why this was never published is unknown and any reasons given would just be conjecture.

The good: the book was found, it was published, you can read it.

The book is divided into four chapters and is about 200 or so pages. There is also a lengthy intro written by Douglas Brinkley & Johnny Depp {I would recommend reading this last, as an afterward}. Something I really loved about this book was the art, which is all pulled from Woody Guthrie’s stacks. The cover is beautiful and the little pieces that introduce the book and close it are simple and cool. Each chapter has a print as well. All really nice looking. Props to the people involved with the books layout (other than that misplaced afterward, but that’s easy to fix).

House of Earth has the feel of those freaky beats poets, but with a hillbilly tongue. The story follows a couple, Tike & Ella May Hamlin, in their struggle to live in the dusty Texas panhandle as sharecroppers. The land is harsh and their house is a wooden, creaky, rotten, sun and wind beaten shack. Tike and Ella May dream of a better life. A life with a piece of land they can call their own. A life with a house that is true and strong, one that will keep the critters and dust and wind and snow and everything else out. They lay their hope in the dream of an adobe house. A house of earth.

I liked this book a lot. The story is compelling, and it rips at the heart fibers. It made me feel anxiety ridden over the main character’s plight. Though it was written in ’47, it is not unrelatable. With so many people in debt today, so many forced out of their lives by natural disaster, and the capitalist machine still in fine form, this novel speaks easy and with force.

This book is an inoculation from the past.

<I think it’s the right time for this aged injection>.

I love a good bad guy.  Sometimes the bad guy is the good guy but most of the time he is just a really bad guy.  In Rodger Dobb’s Ghostman, you are introduced to a true anti-hero, Jack Denton, or at least that is what he has been called before; he is a ghostman.  What is a ghostman, you ask?  Well, he must be able to change his appearance and disappear, he ” has to be confident in the way he acts, talks and behaves”, he must leave absolutely no trace of his true-self behind.  He has no fingerprints, no memorable characteristics, he lives off the grid, he has no past, and he is clever, very very clever.

“Jack” is very good at tracking down missing people and things, so it is no surprise when he receives a phone call one day from Marcus, an old colleague.  Marcus, who we quickly learn would really like to see Jack dead, is in dire need of Jack’s particular skills.  That morning in Atlantic City, a casino heist went astray from Marcus’ plans, leaving one of the two robbers dead and $1.2 million dollars missing.  Jack knows that getting involved with Marcus isn’t the best idea, but he “owes him one”.  Hmmm…maybe our friend Jack does have a little bit of a past.  If the money isn’t found within 24 hours, it will self-destruct.

Let’s not forget the rest of the cast of characters Jack meets along the way: The Feds, the local police, and “The Wolf”, the head of the Atlantic City underworld.  The pressure is on and what a ride it is.  Don’t miss this one!

My boyfriend of several years, Justin Schultz, is a (extremely talented if I do say so myself) freelance graphic designer and illustrator and having been living with him for the past few years I’ve come to genuinely appreciate all things graphic design related.

Typography is one thing that’s really grabbed my attention since Justin and I have been together.  In my opinion it really takes talent to make single letters eye catching and noticeable while also being legible.

That being said, when I first saw that Penguin was putting out this Drop Caps series my eyes lit up quite bright.  This is some of the prettiest typography I’ve come into contact with in the book world.  They are putting out a book for every letter of the alphabet, all of which are great classic novels.

Here is what has been published thus far:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

 

 

 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

 

 

 

My Antonia by Willa Cather

 

 

 

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

 

 

 

Middlemarch by George Eliot

 

 

 

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

 

 

 

This series is a great way to build a library of the classics that look amazing on your shelf.

by Zita