So Was BEA Worth It?
Written byPosted on May 23, 2006
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Yes and no. On one hand, it was a delight to meet up with various litbloggers, editors, publishing heads and writers. (I even got a chance to talk with Paul Slovak.) But as Miss Snark put it before all the craziness, “BEA will break your heart.”
If you have every desire to see so many fantastic books drowned out by boisterous arrays of people standing in line for the likes of Robert Duvall and if you soak up marketing terminology the way that a vacationer throws a damp cloth on his head on a summer day, then BEA is most certainly your thing. If you absolutely must have that galley of Lay of the Land a few weeks before everyone else, then by all means hie away. But for any self-respecting literary journalist, these are easily obtained through the mail. When I observed people standing by the Night Shade booth and made a few passionate endorsements of M. John Harrison to people wandering the floor, I found that very few people actually cared about the quality of the books proffered. They were more interested in scoring free books or meaningless autographs with celebrities. When D’Ambrosio and Link offered thoughtful comments about the current state of the short story, an inevitable “What are the bennies?” question was asked.
Granted, it is vital for everyone to understand that publishing is a business. But it is certainly not just about money. At least not for those who still care about books or for those who realize that publishing is second only to Hollywood in its utterly unsound business model, where lavish advances are thrown into the ether and books are dumped into the market often without a concentrated or targeted plan.
It takes a certain type of person to come to terms with that reality. And I would argue that for literary enthusiasts and champions, wearing multiple hats like this isn’t an easy thing. (It certainly wasn’t easy for me.)
So was it worth it? Well, it was worth every penny to learn that this man has almost no sense of humor whatsoever:
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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.)
Wow, he’s at once bitter, tragic, perplexed and dismayed. But not amused.
Looks as if someone loaned him a sportcoat with outsized shoulder pads.
So that’s what Cynthia Ozick looks like!
How can a celebrity’s autograph be meaningless? How can anything having to do with a celebrity be meaningless?
Just ask Mr. Segundo.
Those ain’t shoulder pads…those is spare brownies.
don Eduardo
While I stand behind one in my admiration for your acumen and great passions (meaning I push my way to the front ranks), I think it is quite arguable that everyone /anyone needs to learn about the publishing business.
What could be more irrelevant to the joys of literature and storytelling and the mysteries therein than the dreary and tawdry minutiae of commerce and its dramatis personae?
I SAY KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL…
That is the most ill-fitting sportcoat I’ve ever seen.