BEA Reports Coming
Written by Edward ChampionPosted on May 28, 2009
Filed Under BEA
You will not see me anywhere near BookExpo America today, nor will there be any reports, writeups, transcripts, audio clips, damaging photographs, evidence for an elaborate blackmail scheme, or any other ancillary materials of anything that is occurring at Javits (or elsewhere) between now and tomorrow. I am presently juggling a considerable number of professional balls and I have slept very little and I have imbibed a hell of a lot of coffee. I have somehow managed to reply to email. It is my understanding that I will be permitted to collapse at some point between 7:00 PM and 2:00 AM EST, but this is contingent upon the current needs of my clients. I am one of those crazy bastards who will perform pirouettes on Red Bull if that’s what it takes to meet a deadline.
I announce all this not to draw attention to myself, although I suppose I should pimp my silly involvement in this otherwise fine this Simon Owens article on Sunday’s BEA blogger signing. Don’t know why the hell he bothered to talk to a guy who uses adverbs like that in everyday conversation, but he asked and I did. (Yes, I will be signing anything you want on Sunday, but I don’t know if I will draw the line — or my name — at breasts. But for those who need some extra incentive, I plan to block out some time to whip up some baked goods. I have been informed that there are authorities at Jacob Javits who may arrest me if I bring in baked goods to disseminate. But I will take my chances. It can’t be any worse than getting arrested for protesting at a Free Mumia rally.)
No, I announce all this to suggest that you go to all other literary and publishing sites for reports on Thursday’s BEA coverage. Because you won’t find anything here. No vacancy in my hotel, amigos. Sorry. But you’ll get some crazy multimedia from me in the next few days. And I am apparently attending something called a tweet-up and a nifty gathering in a bowling alley. For now, I toil!
(For those who are covering BEA for the first time, Bob Hoover has some invaluable tips for you.)
Comments
Leave a Reply
Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
