Ecco’s Daniel Halpern Parleys with Anderson Cooper
– May 21, 2006Posted in: Uncategorized
Books To Jump Up and Down Over
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (Bat Segundo interview with Murphy)
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (Bat Segundo interview with McClear)
That hair should be immortalized.
Many of your pictures are really cool; they make it look like the event was fun. But then some others–such as this one–with lots of men in suits. Omigod–how horrible. If I’d seen that at the event, I would have bolted to the other end of the Earth. Men in suits totally make my skin crawl; they remind me of the Bush goons now. I also find no sex appeal in so much covered-up skin. I want to see lots of guys today burning their suits liberation-style.
Were many of the suit-wearing guys there the “gatekeepers” in publishing nowadays? If so, how sick. And it could explain one reason why I’m forever being denied access.
Now…I don’t know about anyone else, but I want to hear the stories behind the event. Get to some juicy stuff! I’ve been waiting. Like who tried to fondle Spidey, who walked around with toilet paper stuck to their shoe soles, who hit on who, who punched out who, who had too much to drink and then mentioned that Bette Midler’s The Rose was the only song she could play on the piano, but she hadn’t done so in years, which was when a known screenwriter asked her to play the song, and she refused but he kept asking her, and so she did play it, and of course she fucked it up…oh wait. That was me! At a writer’s conference.
What’s wrong with wearing a suit? I enjoy wearing a suit every now and then.
What Aaron said. I’m not a big fan of ties or hollow spectacle either (and admittedly there was a good deal of that), but every now and then, I like to dress up, particularly for a swank party.
Of course, with HarperCollins, the troubling thing was that nobody wanted to introduce each other, much less find out anyone’s names. Surrounded by so many luminaries, some folks were terrified to introduce themselves.
Case in point: People were damn curious who the guy with the frizzy hair was, but nobody wanted to go up to Halpern and find out.
Well, I did, although through a rather circuitous route. I would have introduced myself to Halpern directly, but he was constantly enmeshed in a closed circle (as pictured above). And when he was alone, he walked briskly to the other side of the party before I could make his acquaintance. Luckily, I got the scoop seconds later from some very nice people who worked at Ecco.