Hating, then Loving Big Fat Books--an Ode to The Lonely Polygamist

Hurray! Our first copies of The Lonely Polygamist are in! Time to talk about it some more.

Several months ago, I mentioned that Amie and I attended Winter Institute in San Jose. One of the things I noticed that not only was there a big, fat buzz book, there three of them vying for attention. Knowing I could not possibly aim for all three, I put aside Justin Cronin's big, fat vampire novel, The Passage, and Karl Marlantes' big, fat Vietnam novel Matterhorn, and set my initial sites on Brady Udall's big, fat polygamy novel, The Lonely Polygamist?

Why?

1. Because he had the longest lines. Not just any lines (or I'd be reading xxxxxxxx xxxxxx's latest), but lines of outliers (yes, I'm appropriating Gladwell), folks who read and sell to that sweet spot where critical analysis meets emotional resonance.
2. Because Johanna told me to. I trust my Norton rep.
3. Because I still have remorse that I didn't read The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint.*
4. Because I'm sort of on a polygamy reading program, having read and enjoyed The Nineteenth Wife and The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives.

It turned out that I loved The Lonely Polygamist. It's the story of Golden Richards, inducted into the Principle by his father and now the proud husband to four wives and father to 28 children. The story is family dysfunction on a grand scale, told through the eyes of Golden, his wife Trish (the one mostly on the margins, she only has one child) and one son, Rusty, known to the rest of the family as "the little terrorist."

Golden's got a construction company, but his finances are little shakey. He takes a job he's not quite proud of (or maybe shame is the right word, as everybody in the family thinks he's doing senior housing), for a whorehouse. There's pressure to take wife number five, but meanwhile he probably needs to get the first four to stop feuding. And no, you don't exactly get to know all 28 kids all that well, but you get the feeling Golden doesn't know them that well either.

Udall, as you may know, wrote the piece for Esquire Magazine in 1998, which was titled "Big Love." Somebody got the idea from this piece for a little series on HBO. Supposedly Udall didn't get any credit--a little idea stealing, alas. I think he has a better case than the author of The Adventures of Willie the Wizard has.

Like Middlesex, Udall takes the other and makes it familiar, if not commonplace. His writing reminds me of Anne Tyler of all things, the befuddled patriarch who is not quite clear how he got where he did. It's a wonderful book, and I'm hoping for a great run.

And here's the strange thing. The book came in and it doesn't look all that fat. I'm still trying to figure this one out.

Here's an interview with Udall in Boise Weekly where he discussed the writing process, his background, and a bit about Boise.

*I met a bookseller at WI5 who told me he almost never rereads authors. It's mostly first novels and discoveries. After that, he's bored. So when I pushed Frederick Reiken's Day For Night on him, it was a good thing he hadn't read either The Odd Sea or The Lost Legends of New Jersey.

How the World Reacts to Day for Night, a Post About Translation Rights

It's almost time for Day for Night, my spring obession, to arrive. It's time to start posting.

About a year ago, when I was in my throes of Little Bee love, I did a post about the book's two titles, and the various jackets. It turns out the publishers' were correct--the two titles were appropriate for different markets. Or...the book was so good that you could call it Immigration Detention Center Story or Batman on the Beach and it still would have found its market.

That said, I thought the hardcover jackets for the US and UK versions for Little Bee/The Other Hand were quite similar in style. For the paperbacks, the visions diverged greatly. The US stayed the course with their beautiful artwork and bold color that popped that book off the shelf in a big way. The UK went with a more traditional paperback jacket--a photo of a boy on the beach. Both worked.

It's an interesting topic, and I could talk about international rights with just about every author and get some sort of insight, but surprisingly enough, it came up again with my new book obsession, Frederick Reiken's Day for Night. The book has started shipping!

I asked Mr. Reiken to talk a little about how foreign rights have gone for him.

"I can tell you that the foreign rights thing has always seemed pretty random in my case. My first novel, for instance, had German, Dutch, and Greek translations. You can see all the foreign covers on my web page and I still have no idea what those kayaking Eskimos are doing on the cover of the Greek version, but I've been told it's a good translation (by a Greek speaking person who still has no idea about the Eskimos).

"So far, with Day For Night, there are going to be Dutch and French translations, as well as editions in the U.K. and Australia. I'm told that these days there is sometimes more international action after the pub. date. Here's hoping -since I really thought more European countries would be interested. The book will be available throughout most European countries in English (the British edition, I think).

"What might amuse you is that the same house (Little Brown UK/Abacus Books) is doing both the U.K. and Australia editions, but they decided to go with two completely different covers - which you can also see on my web page (go to the "books" link and look on bottom right of the Day For Night page) both of which are radically different from the U.S. edition cover. I was told by the British publisher that Brit readers are cynical and don't like anything that might have spiritual connotations (i.e. the sunburst on the watery blue U.S. cover), and I suppose the Aussies will always like animals and motorcycles."

You might think these jackets represent three different books, but to me, they work on a continuum. The UK cover plays up the serious aspects of the novel, while the Australian cover emphasizes the playful ones. The American cover seems to try to balance them.

Still to come--why do the Dutch love Reiken so? It looks like his second novel, The Lost Legends of New Jersey, had trouble getting international publication, and not surprising, because of the place-centered aspect of the novel, which doesn't work outside of the international tourist destinations of New York, San Francisco, and a handful of other American locales. That said, there was still a Dutch edition.

Have Lunch with the Acclaimed Novelist Sue Miller on April 28th--Musings on Her New Novel, The Lake Shore Limited

It's almost time for the Friends of the Milwaukee Public Library Literary Luncheon, a great way to support the Library. Last year's event was one of my first events outside the store. It was Leif Enger talking about his book So Brave, Young, and Handsome. I don't how well the book did elsewhere in paper, but that luncheon's high profile let to solid sales for Enger for the rest of 2009.

This year's guest is Sue Miller, author of many beloved novels, including the new one, The Lake Shore Limited. Not everyone who starts out with the bang of The Good Mother can continue writing strong literary works that also resonate with lots of readers (writer talk for them selling well) but Miller is one of them. Miller's work has continued to win critical acclaim, most recently for The Senator's Wife.

The jumping off point for Miller’s new novel is 9/11. In this case, the story is about a play being performed, one with the terrorist bombing of a train. Don’t think that Miller’s gone all action-adventure, the story is about relationships and memories and regret. Having just finished Let the Great World Spin, I was curious to see how Miller would handle this touchstone tragedy that has been absorbed into so many artistic works. The results are very different, but no less interesting.

Wilehlmina Gertz’s new play is set in Chicago. A professor has learned from his son that the train his wife was travelling on has been attacked by a terrorist group. Let’s just say the family is not particularly happy with his reaction, particularly when they meet his mistress.

As we all make desperate attempts to read the artists’ life into their stories, so are the characters who see the play wondering how much this mirrors Billy’s life, or at least her feelings for her lost lover, Gus, who was on one of the 9/11 planes. And Billy acknowledges in the story a rift she had with Gus, when she lifted a private moment from their lives and put it in one of her earlier works.

The story is almost a chain of regret, jumping from the playwright, to the actor with an invalid wife who slept with her, to the sister of the victim, to a family friend set up with the playwright by the sister, who at one time had a chaste dalliance with him. The story jumps back and forth in time, but not in that present-past kind of way. No, the story keeps moving ahead and jumping back a notch, so that you get the same event from several perspectives.

The play at the center of the book is not just a framing device however. It portends the book itself, which is sort of set up in acts, and you could see that most of the plot action is of the drawing room sort where the action would be retold by the character in a living room or a restaurant or a theater. In fact, the only piece of action would be when two characters have an accident in an Arboretum. It made me curious whether Miller had thought about her novel as a play itself, making the references come full circle.

I found the answer (sort of) in an interview with Miller on the Random House site.

Q: Much of the book centers around the characters’ reactions to Billy’s play, “The Lake Shore Limited”. How and why did you structure the book as, in essence, a play within a play?

A: As I began to include some of the lines from the play and create scenes in rehearsal, it began to seem more important to me. It began to seem central to the book, actually. I began to see the book as at least in part a kind of speculation on how the experience of art can be transforming in life—for those who create it, as Billy and also Rafe, the actor, do; and for those who take it in and ponder it and ask about its connections to their own lives. And then, I suppose, I just got interested in the play, too—in writing it, at least the part you read in the book.

While Miller has not disclosed whether she would turn this novel into a play (which I still think she could do quite successfully), she has thought about writing Billy's play!

I expected one sort of novel and got another. To my surprise, it reminded me much of one of my favorite authors, Alice Adams. This led to me wondering why there was no Adams on my rec shelf, and whether there were any Adams’ books in the store at all. This reminded me of this amazing bookstore I went to in Tucson years ago (long closed) that would carry every book of every author the proprietor liked, as long as they could be obtained (and well after, as many were ostensibly new but out of print).

See? Just reading Miller leads me to that sort of chain-of-events thinking that gives the novel such energy. I’m so excited that Miller will be the guest at this year’s Friends of the Milwaukee Public Library literary lunch on Wednesday, April 28th. You can arrive early to get your books signed—doors open at 11. You can still get tickets by calling 414-286-8720 or email friends@mpl.org.

Read this Seattle Times review.

Read the rest of the interview.

We Test a Facebook Promotion for "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and It is Over Within Minutes, Plus Three Folks Advance in Elizabeth Berg Essay Contest

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", or as I like to call it, "Män som hatar kvinnor"* is playing at the Downer Theatre on our block, at least through Thursday. We partnered with Vintage to offer free pairs of tickets to the first ten reponders. Congrats to all lucky winners.

If you are irked by missing out, you should become a fan of Boswell Books on Facebook. I think they are changing the terminology of "become a fan of" to "like" as folks are more likely to click on that button, even though it does the same thing. Another option they discarded was "make fan of" as in "Would you like to make fan of Boswell Books?" That received the highest number of responses, but the resulting sites were barraged with insults.

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Another contest that is closed out is our Elizabeth Berg essay contest for her new novel, The Last Time I Saw You. Congrats to the semi-finalists, and thanks to the Journal Sentinel, who put the contest in their Cue section** . We sent off the semi-finalists to Ms. Berg's publicist for the final judging.

*You should all know by now that the untranslated title is "Men who hate women." I don't know what the title of the second book was. Oh, yes I do, it's "Flickan som lekte med elden." Could there already be a movie of this too?

**And they got the spelling of our name right! We, on the other hand, spelled it wrong in our email newsletter, which may have imposed an bit of a mental puzzle to solve. Why isn't this going through? Hey, Boswell is spelled wrong. That said, we did correct it in our next newsletter. But my apologies to entrants who might have been a little stressed out.

Our event with Berg is Wednesday, April 13th, at 7 PM, where Berg will read the winning entry. I'm on my way to buy the bottle of champagne for the winner. Forgot to enter or still brushing up your entry? Next Chapter is having a similar contest.

Japanese Erasers Find Us Amused and Confused

What is exactly supposed to be featured in that dish? Why is it important to collect the bowling ball plus pins in all three colors? Do these things really work as erasers?

And many, many other questions. That said, we're selling them for a dollar each.

Not Enough USB Ports? That's a Job for My Other Mouse

My new laptop has 3 ports. Great! The problem is that I need a connection for our printer, one for my inventory system, one for photos, and one for my memory stick.

Fortunately I had bought the solution to sell at our store. It's a USB mouse from Streamline, and it comes in blue, green, and white. When it's working, the eyes light up. I don't usually reorder this stuff unless it sells out very quickly...or it fits in with a blog post.

I'm kind of a big fan of this line, and I find myself buying for myself just about everything I bring in. I carry around my duck tape measurer and keep my ladybug calculator on my desk.

Now I've got my eye on the panda bear manual shredder.

Trailer Mania! Pete Nelson and Adam Langer Share Book Trailers with me in the Same Week

A few days ago, I received a trailer from Pete Nelson for I Thought You Were Dead. No, not an Airstream, but a link to a Youtube video. As you should know, we're hosting an event with Nelson on April 20th. The trailer captures the mood of the book, in that it's a little quirky, a little sad, a little confessional.

At the same time, Adam Langer sent me the link to a trailer for his new novel, The Thieves of Manhattan. coming out in July. The jacket isn't finalized yet. Like most of what Langer writes, it made me laugh.

Jason bought it for the store as a hardcover, and it still claims that on Ipage, but I noticed on Edelweiss it's now a paperback original. Our rep John is so good about sending us change memos, but there are so many adjustments in the fast moving world of modern publishing, that it's hard for a small store to keep up. Apparently, it's hard for Ingram to keep up too, though I've been told whenver I send in corrections that they expect publishers to make the changes via feed.

Right now, my link to our website says hardcover, but if this change is correct, it will suddenly change, as our website is also linked to Ingram.

Since there's no jacket for the new book, I give you one for Crossing California, mostly because I still love that book, even though it is now out of print! It makes me so sad that this book has never found its market. We sold three copies last year, two new and one second hand.

Inside the Self-Published Book--Richard Cutler as Case Study

It was over a year ago that Richard W. Cutler contacted me about his new book, I Came, I Saw, I Wrote: A Risk-Taker's Life in Law, Espionage, Community Service, Start-Ups, and Writing.

The author of Greater Milwaukee's Growing Pains and Counterspy had written a memoir. The manuscript was pretty much done, but the new book certainly incorporated aspects of the other books. After all, his war career was pretty much about intelligence, and his law career was highlighted by working on regional issues. Sometimes the issue was about municipalities working together, and sometimes (as in the 1950's, when Cutler faced down Zeidler over the annexation of nearby towns), it was about municipalities working separately.

Just to reemphasize how bookselling is about diverse ideas (that I think we have a chance of selling), I made arrangements for Cutler's new book the same week I brought back in Mayor Zeidler's memoir, which we hadn't had in stock since the transition to Boswell. But I jump ahead here.)

We talked about the options for the book. It was my thought that a book on how Cutler's training during the war affected his post-war law practice. I had rigged up this whole gimmick in my head--Counterspy For Success, and could imagine it being a hit with just the right business publisher.

Only one problem. That wasn't the book that was written. And I hadn't read it yet, so I didn't know what was in it. One day I will write a post on reading unpublished manuscripts.

After looking at several options, Cutler decided to produce the book himself. There's really great talent in the Milwaukee area, and he took advantage of it. The book was printed by Burton & Meyer, marketing efforts are being coordinated by Luminaries, and the cover shot was done by Deone Jahnke.

The book chronicles Cutler's legal career, mostly in the firms that consolidated to become the modern Quarles and Brady. Not only was he involved in the creation of the current makeup of the cities and villages of Milwaukee and Waukesha Counties, he was helped in the purchase of the Milwaukee Brewers. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention Cutler was the son in law of Edmund Fitzgerald, the man the ship was named for that sank in the 1970's. I feel just steps removed from Gordon Lightfoot.

I heard the event at Next Chapter was very successful. Did you miss it? We're hosting Cutler on Thursday, April 29th, at 7 PM. (Thanks to Kirk for noticing that I wrote the piece as if the Mequon event hadn't yet happened. I wrote it several days ago and wound up moving it).

The book retails for $19.95 and is available at both bookstores. We've also posted it on a popular website, using their marketplace program.

More in the Journal Sentinel.