Thrillwaukee Focus: Robert Crais and "A Dangerous Man"

One of the things I like about mystery series is their placeyness. Laura Lippman knows Baltimore, William Kent Krueger is all about rural Minnesota, and Sarah Paretsky has kept most (but not all) of V.I. Warshawski's cases in Chicagoland. But when you're writing about Los Angeles, you have to compete with some bigwigs - Michael Connelly, Walter Mosley, James Ellroy, Ross MacDonald, Raymond Chandler, and Dorothy B. Hughes, an author who hits a lot of best-of lists, but is not as well known as some of these other writers. Her novels are currently being republished by New York Review of Books. It looks like her most noted title is In a Lonely Place. I'm told it's quite superior to the Humphrey Bogart adaptation.

The list goes on. My guess is that this is particularly fertile territory because, like New York, there are a lot of writers living there, and since many of them are screenwriters, the mystery/thriller works better as a genre than say, the linked short story collection from multiple perspectives.

One name that comes up again and again is Robert Crais, who has been writing Los Angeles mysteries since 1987. While many of you have read many of his books, his latest, A Dangerous Man, is only my second, following The Monkey's Raincoat, his first published novel in this very colorful Los Angeles series. And it's fascinatingly similar and yet different, much the way the mystery genre of the 1980s has morphed into the popular thrillers of today.

For one thing, while both books feature Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, their roles have reversed. In the early books, Elvis was the detective and star, while Joe was the sidekick. Elvis was quirky, dressed casually SoCal with a Disney-themed office. And one early novel's copy described Joe as sociopathic hardly the hero of a series. But that was then. Now Joe is more like a Hollywood action star, with the mandatory military credentials, a way with weapons, and the blessing of American secret forces of all stripes. He's shown in a much more positive light, hardly a sociopath. And Elvis is now like his gofer. At least in one of the action scenes, he shows he can carry a weapon. I was waiting for him to get kidnapped and have Joe save him. But that role is played by other actors here. 

In A Dangerous Man, the story starts with Joe being in the wrong place at the wrong time, a bank where two goons are getting ready to kidnap a teller. These hired hands don't know much, and when Joe goes after them, they don't have much of a chance. Isabel is a young woman who is trying to figure out what to do after the death of her mom. She's inherited the house, but living day to day. Her greatest solace is her childhood friend Carly and Carly's mom Joyce, who've become a second family.

But someone's after Isabel; she is not in the clear at all. And things get even stranger when the U.S. Marshalls enter the picture; her death is tied to the death of a retired Marshall in Palmdale, linked by the same killer syndicate. The villains might think Joe is a goon for hire, but really, he's just helping out because it's the right thing to do. In that way, he reminds me of Nick Petrie's Peter Ash, which is a good thing because Petrie is our conversation partner for Crais on Sunday, August 11, at Boswell. 

In this case, I'm not going to say too much more. This is not a "what did the book club think?" post, after all. I will note the action is fast-paced, the dialogue is prominent but doesn't overwhelm the story so much to seem like a film treatment (and since this is a series, you can't sell the film rights anyway, because somebody probably already owns Pike and Cole), and while it's probably lower-key in placeyness than the early Crais novels, there's still plenty of local color, from Los Feliz to Koreatown to Burbank to Malibu.

One thing I enjoyed about the Crais's work is how he tried to breathe life into his side characters. Witnesses, bit players, law enforcement folk all have their little tics that humanize them. Sometimes it gives them warmth, while other times they are infuriating. John Chen their inside person in forensics, is nothing short of a mess, but he's there when it counts. But really, has their been Crais novel when he went off the deep end, or is that coming in the future. Because he's definitely wired.

At this point in the game, writers with big names can submit passable stuff and still get substantial sales in mass merchants based on their past work. Others are using ghost writers, and just to show that writing can be a family business, it's not uncommon for the son or daughter of a series writer to take over the character. Being that Crais is writing only one book every two years, it's pretty clear he's still working hard.

And it appears that the extra year pays off. Reviews on Crais's books continue to be great. Kirkus Reviews wrote: "If you’ve always wished Lee Child’s Jack Reacher had a little more balance in his life - but the same formidable talents - you'll love Joe Pike and the latest book in this long, superb series." It's a trifecta of raves at the trades - Publishers Weekly and Booklist were also enthusiastic.

In the consumer press, Tom Nolan had this to say in The Wall Street Journal: "Mr. Crais unspools this tense and involving saga - which races all over the Los Angeles area, from the fading allure of the 'Miracle Mile' to the sun-blasted San Fernando Valley to the shores of Malibu - with dashes of wit, lots of local color, many bursts of sudden action and some 300 pages of relentless suspense."

So yes, Robert Crais is coming, for the first time to Boswell, this Sunday, August 11, 3 pm. As noted, he'll be in conversation with Nick Petrie (at left). This event is cosponsored by Crimespree. No signing restrictions, but if you have a pile of books to get signed, we'll ask you to wait until the end of the line. Over the years, Crais visited Mystery One many times, and sometimes Schwartz was able to get a second event as well. It's a homecoming, of sorts. The event is free, but we are registering through Saturday. Your click will help us make sure we've set out enough chairs. It's gonna be a good one! The link is craismke.bpt.me.

Future Thrillwaukee events:

Tuesday, August 13, 7 pm, at Boswell: Andrew Shaffer, author of Hope Never Dies and Hope Rides Again

Friday, August 16, 7 pm, at Boswell: Billy Jensen, author of Chase Darkness with Me, in conversation with Doug Gordon. Register at jensenmke.bpt.me

Tuesday, August 22, 2 pm (note time), at Boswell: Patricia Skalka, author of Death by the Bay, the latest Dave Kubiak mystery

Sunday, September 8, 3 pm, at Boswell: William Kent Krueger, author of This Tender Land, the #1 Indie Next pick for September. Register at kruegermke.bpt.me

Friday, October 4, 7 pm, at Boswell: Joe Hill, author of Full Throttle. This one is registration required at joehillmke.bpt.me and it's almost sold out.

Monday, October 7, 7 pm, at Boswell: Craig Johnson, author of Land of Wolves, the latest in the Longmire series. Tickets at craigjohnsonmke.bpt.me

What did the book club think of Esi Edugyan's Washington Black? Warning, there are spoilers in this post.

Spoiler warning. There, I said it twice.

The first thing I’m going to note about our In-Store Lit Group discussion for Washington Black is that we had 21 attendees, which is our largest turnout for an event without a special guest (author or theater person). And on top of that, to my knowledge, everyone who attended finished the book. That certainly didn’t happen often.

Washington Black was a New York Times top ten-best book for 2018. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, which Edugyan also received for novel number two, Half Blood Blues. It was noted on a recent podcast that the Giller Prize reward is ten times what the National Book Award is for fiction. But is that in Canadian dollars?

I will note that while many people loved it, some preferred the first part of the book set in Barbados, to the subsequent sections that involved the travel narrative. But it’s my feeling that this jump off, much like the Cloud-Cutter device pictured on the cover, sets the book apart. I’d also like to note that I am a big fan of the paperback jacket for this book – far superior than the hardcover treatment. I’m usually a grump about paperback changes, so let the record stand that this is not the case here.

Esi Edugyan (soft G, per an interview) didn’t mean to write Washington Black as a subversion of the Jules Verne narrative. It was an editor who pointed this out to her, per an interview with Moira Macdonald in the Seattle Times. But after some thought, she came to the conclusion that “that’s exactly the spirit in which it should be read.”

It’s also important to keep in mind when you have a couple people in your book club complaining that it was unbelievable. Unlike reading, for example, Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad or Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, which are predicated on a speculative premise, Edugyan’s novel opens rather realistically and brutally. It's only later that you're asked to suspend disbelief. Could an amateur scientist on this remote plantation build a Cloud-Cutter of this nature?

But did you question Jules Verne when he wrote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Maybe you did, but then you’d have to have invited a time travel machine, and now who’s skirting reality? And on a related note, another attendee asked where they got all that money to travel. My answer? Not important.

As our sales rep Jason Gobble said (of our great event with Claire Lombardo on Tuesday), Washington Black is a rare book that appeals both to the critics and prize judges, and everyday readers looking for a plot-driven narrative. He didn’t quite say it like that – I should really carry around a recording device.

And now some spoiler plot points.

George Washington Black, or Wash for short, is raised on a Barbados plantation named Faith, ruled by a brutal master named Erasmus Wilde. He’s cared for by Big Kit, who nurtures him while still keeping a bit of distance. Into his life comes Christopher “Titch” Wilde, the master’s brother, who wants a slave to help him with his scientific experiment. When tragedy strikes on the island, Titch helps Wash escape, and so begin the adventures, to Virginia, Nova Scotia, London, and more, from the piercing cold to scorching heat.

After Titch and Wash make it to Canada, where Titch’s father is discovered (we thought he was dead!), Titch abandons Wash and leaves him to make a life in Nova Scotia. Wash is distraught but makes a living delivering packages for a local store. It turns out that Wash has great artistic talent and those skills lead to him falling in with naturalist G.M. Goff and his daughter Tanna. Goff has plans to build a fantastic aquarium called The Ocean House. But that doesn’t stop Wash’s dive to find Titch, which drives much of the narrative thrust of of the rest of the story.

And while Wash is on a quest, he’s also being chased. Because Erasmus Wilde, back at Faith, has put a price on his head as a runaway slave, and the bounty hunter is in the form of John Francis Willard, who will take him back dead or alive.

Despite the story being through Wash’s eyes, it doesn’t take much thought to realize that Titch doesn’t see Wash the way Wash sees Titch. Titch might well have been an abolitionist but this does not still allow him to see Wash beyond abstraction. The bias is still there. But Wash sees him as a father figure, much like Titch still searches for and seeks the approval of his father James. James has pretty much abandoned the family and though we don’t think he started the rumor that he was dead, he certainly wasn’t upset by it.

One of the other things I loved about the book was not just that Edugyan wrote a corrective to the Verne stories that put black and brown people in the background and in service positions, but that it also, as Edugyan noted in an interview with Sam Briger on Fresh Air, thought about black people in a different way regarding science. So many narratives have people of color being the subjects of experiments, and not the acting as the scientists themselves While Titch drives the creation of the Cloud-Cutter, it’s Wash whose innovation brings The Ocean House to life.

And as Lily noted, how interesting that a man chasing his freedom would spend so much time penning in sea creatures of the exhibit. But that is just one of the complications of Wash, who as Maureen Corrigan noted on Fresh Air, is focused upon “the search for transcendence above categories.”

A number of readers were bothered by the lack of a definitive ending. I have this open-ended ending discussion quite often and I think by avoiding closure, Edugyan has brought us out of a genre-influence novel of the past (the Dickensian ending) and back to the present. I'm not going to say exactly what that ending is, but the question is, did Wash achieve his own moment of transcendence

One last thing – I often note interesting connections between books I’m reading, but I hardly expected to find a link between Washington Black and Where the Crawdads Sing, but there is one. It’s two stories with non-traditional naturalist illustrators at their core.

If you've already picked up Half Blood Blues, Edugyan's first novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, is also still in print.

Our next book we’re discussing is Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi’s Call Me Zebra on Monday, August 25, 7 pm. And then on Monday, October 14, we'll be reading The Overstory. We're experimenting with two sessions for that discussion, 2 pm and 7 pm.

Our Boswell-run book clubs page is updated through the end of the year. All the groups are reading some interesting selections. I’m hoping to attend the Books and Beer discussion of Matt Haig’s How to Stop Time on August 19 and we’ve got Layne Fargo coming for our November 25 Mystery Group discussion of Temper. They meet at 6, she’ll answer spoiler questions at 6:30, and then we’ll have a back-of-the-store traditional event at 7.

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending August 3, 2019

What's selling at Boswell?

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
2. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
3. The Most Fun We Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo (event at Boswell Tue Aug 6, 7 pm)
4. The Lager Queen of Minnesota, by J Ryan Stradal (this event at Cafe Hollander on Aug 14 is fully registered)
5. Big Sky (V5), by Kate Atkinson
6. The Chain, by Adrian McKinty
7. Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman
8. Chances Are, by Richard Russo
9. New Girl (V19), by Daniel Silva
10. City of Girls, by Elizabeth Gilbert

I think the new release pops are now going to come with more regularity as we move into fall. It took two weeks of on-sale and lots of media coverage including a great Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross for Lady in the Lake to pop onto our top 10. It was fortuitously good time for a novel about Baltimore. Booklist wrote: "This is a superb character study, a terrific newspaper novel, and a fascinating look at urban life and racial discrimination in the '60s."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Normal Sucks, by Jonathan Mooney
2. Furious Hours, by Casey Cep
3. For the Good of the Game, by Bud Selig
4. Educated, by Tara Westover
5. Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo
6. The Bastard Bridge, by Sam Kean
7. Last Witnesses, by Svetlana Alexievich
8. American Carnage, by Tim Alberta
9. Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe
10. Milwaukee: A City Built on Water, by John Gurda

Our afternoon events continue to go pretty well, with us slipping a 2 pm event with Casey Cep in between events in Madison and North Shore Chicago. Boswellian Tim McCarthy has this to say about Furious Hours: "In showing the humanity of everyone involved, she uses exhaustive research to arrive at smart, sweeping conclusions. She gives us remarkable depth in biographical pictures of Maxwell, Lee, Capote, and others, and along the way she captures the mood of both the landscape and the politics of civil rights era Alabama and New York, where Lee split her time. Cep has done marvelous work, expertly bringing a degree of closure to a monumental literary loss." It will definitely be in his top 5 for 2019.

Paperback Fiction:
1. Death Takes a Bow (V4), by David S Pederson
2. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
3. Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng
4. Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited, by Clint McElroy
5. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
6. Death Comes Darkly (V1), by David S Pederson
7. Good Omens (three paperback editions), by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
8. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson
9. Vintage 1954, by Antoine Laurain
10. Death Checks In (V3), by David S Pederson

I did see some great new paperback fiction releases this week that I hoped might have a pop, but in general, things will get a little quiet in this category come fall. Let's see if we can get one of our favorites from 2018, Virgil Wander, onto the list next week. Meanwhile, another great event with David Pederson, author of the Alan Keyes and Heath Barrington mysteries. Death Takes a Bow is set at (wait for it) a theater. It's his first that we tried on a weeknight - it had a talk, signing, singing, refreshments, and photo opps with a mannequin.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Inside Game, by Wayne Embry
2. Milwaukee Jazz, by Joey Grihalva
3. Oranumics, by Ben Callif
4. 111 Places in Milwaukee that You Must Not Miss, by Michelle Madden
5. How to See, by Thich Nhat Hanh
6. Calypso, by David Sedaris
7. North Point Historic Districts, by Shirley Du Fresne McArthur
8. When Women Were Birds, by Terry Tempest Williams
9. 100 Things to Do in Milwaukee Before You Die (2E), by Jenna Kashou
10. Bob Ross by the Numbers, by Bob Ross and Robb Pearlman

I can pretty much assure you that Bob Ross by the Numbers is not counting towards bestseller reporting. It's part of a long line of confusing categorization - is a book with stuff a book (qualifies) or stuff (not qualifies). It's sort of like that weird dividing line between nonfiction and miscellaneous. The Ross package (and calling it a package might be a hint as to whether it qualifies as a book) is part of Running Press Minis, a series that's been around for a long time. At one time at Schwartz, all our stores had Running Press Mini spinners. I still have a Moosewood mini; I think it's 16 pages or recipes. I don't know why I wanted it, and that is the driving force of these packages. You wonder, and then you buy them, also for someone else. And of course it's part of the Bob Ross revival.

Books for Kids:
1. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, with illustrations by Renee Graef
2. The Day the Crayons Came Home, by Drew Daywalt, with illustrations by Oliver Jeffers
3. Poison Jungle (V13), by Tui T Sutherland
4. The Wild Robot Escapes (V2), by Peter Brown
5. Fancy Pants, by Roger Priddy
6. Crayon's Book of Colors, by Drew Daywalt, with illustrations by Oliver Jeffers
7. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls (V1), by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo
8. The Day the Crayons Quit, by Drew Daywalt, with illustrations by Oliver Jeffers 9. How to Read a Book, by Kwame Alexander
10. Potato Pants!, by Laurie Keller

What a Crayon extravaganza! Three books in The Day the Crayons Quit series hit our top ten and that's because Amie bought a display of these titles that included plush crayons, two each of blue, green, red, and orange, which of course don't count towards the bestseller list. We're out of several colors, but don't worry, Jen is restocking from Merry Makers and this time, we'll be able to buy the colors according to demand, which we think is not just based on color but facial expression. We're pretty sure that blue will be the bestselling color. And yes, we're taking preorders for The Crayons' Christmas, which comes out October 15.

At the Journal Sentinel, some book reviews. Lincee Ray from the Associated Press: "In Reasons to Be Cheerful, author Nina Stibbe offers an intimate look at this uncertain time as the protagonist becomes a young adult. In this story, Lizzie Vo- gel ignores the part of an advertisement that asks for a 'mature lady' and applies for a job working in a local dentist’s office. She doesn’t feel the need to mention that she doesn’t have any knowledge of dentistry. (Lizzie is a quick learner.) Plus, the position includes an apartment above the practice."

Matt McCarthy from USA Today: "Every few years, Ebola would appear at random, killing nearly everyone in its path, and then it would vanish. Where did it go? And why did some people survive? My team never solved the mystery, and those questions have gnawed at researchers for years. In Richard Preston’s extraordinary new book, Crisis in the Red Zone, we finally get answers.

Also from Associated Press, Samantha Critchell reviews Chelsea Girls, the latest from Fiona Davis, her latest historical novel. This time struggling artists Hazel and Maxine join forces at the Chelsea Hotel for a life in theater. Critchell notes: "Davis, who has given juicy supporting roles to New York landmarks in The Masterpiece and The Address, uses Chelsea as a metaphor for the grandeur that was within reach but spirals into a much darker place."

This event on Tuesday is literally going to be the most fun you've ever had at a book event. Too over the top? Well, it's still going to be great - Claire Lombardo and Jason Gobble at Boswell on Tuesday, August 6, 7 pm - some background.

Once upon a time there was the traveling book representative. The arrived with a suitcase filled with book covers, a marked up catalog, and a long list of accounts. Selling in was really the only important part of the job. What happened afterwards was somebody else's problem. Some of the old school reps didn't even know much about their books; I recall one beloved old rep who would hold up a photo of the book jacket and read to you his notes printed on the back. If you asked him how the book was, he'd tell you what New York thought. Even at that time, however, there were passionate reps who took an interest in getting the word out about their titles - the best reps moved up from the field to the New York offices. You don't see that as much anymore, but that's for another post.

Nowadays a sales rep more like a territory manager, doing follow up, helping with author event proposals, displays, and reporting back to the publisher on how everything is working. They're expected to keep you informed of which book sales are taking off, which might have stock problems, and yes, which are not hitting expectations. Our best reps know our booksellers so well that they will recommend advance copies for early reading. In a sense, I call them wholesale hand-sellers. They help us find the books that we then tell you about. And if you come back to us, thrilled with your newly discovered treasure, we'll go back to them and thank them for the find.

One thing that has become commonplace in the industry is sales rep presentations to booksellers. Many regional trade organizations organize them formally; there's a series in Chicago, for example. Boswell, along with Books & Company, cohosts a series of these meetings every year. This tradition goes back decades; it was over thirty years ago that a bunch of us gathered in David Schwartz's home to hear from representatives (at right, a book that was featured at my the first evening I attended). Sales reps are brought in now to do presentations at our trade conferences too. At rep-arounds, booksellers eat lunch while sales reps and sales managers move from table to table pitching upcoming and sometimes just-released titles of interest.

If you enjoy my book presentations that I do on new releases book clubs, and holiday book suggestions (at Boswell, the Shorewood and Elm Grove Libraries, the Woman's Club, on the radio, and wherever I happen to be booked), I am just cribbing from the style of our best reps. And there's no question that one of our best reps at this is Jason Gobble from Penguin Random House. And after seeing enthusiastic responses to Jason's presentations for years at our rep nights, as well as popular public presentations at bookstores in the Midwest (including both Books & Company and InkLink in metro Milwaukee), I sort of begged him to be a part of an event at Boswell.

If you shop at Boswell, you already might be familiar with Mr. Gobble. He actually came up with the idea of the sales rep recommends display and had his picks up for about a year. Right now we have three other reps offering their picks, and we'll be doing a little more rotation this fall. He was at the heart of our obsession with Hannah Rothschild's The Improbability of Love, started off our love affair with Peter Heller by seeding the store with copies of The Dog Stars, and convinced Chris and I that Amy Jones was Canada's best-kept literary secret. Needless to say, her novel, We're All in This Together, is one of his picks on Tuesday.

But what author should he connect with? Matching authors into these presentations is a fine art. You have to work with a book you like, and you have to have an author who is game for this alternate format with a slightly shorter presentation. I found that last year's talks with Kathleen Rooney (at Weyenberg and Elm Grove) for Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk were a perfect match. We wound up having a lot of book clubs pick this book as a selection; we also wound up having the third best sales at an independent (according to the Edelweiss inventory program) in the country, despite the book not being set here and the author not being from here.

And of course in this case it had to be a book that was in Jason's sales bag.

And then a delightful thing happened. It turns out that Claire Lombardo was doing a swing through the Chicago area for her breakout debut novel The Most Fun We Ever Had and the publisher agreed to add on a few dates in Wisconsin*. The Most Fun We've Ever Had is a newly released hardcover that has been selling particularly strongly in the Milwaukee area, according to Bookscan. The author is a delight, from everyone I have talked to. And the book is family drama set in and around Chicago, and we do love Chicago novels. Though the rest of the state doesn't think of Chicago as regional, much of Southeast Wisconsin has strong connections. It's funny, it's warm, it's heartbreaking, and the writing is beautiful. And you know I love a good sister novel and this one has four. What more can you want?

David and Marilyn seem to have the perfect marriage, at least from the perspective of their four kids - Wendy, Violet, Liza, and Grace. But their kids are not having an easy time of it. Wendy is a self-medicating widow, Violet is an anxious, have-it-all mom of four, Liza is pregnant but her husband is struggling with depression, and Grace, struggling to live in the shadow of her wealthier (Wendy and Violet) or even middle class (Grace) sisters, has lied to the family about her professional prospects.  And things take a turn when Wendy makes a big discovery that bring another member of the family into the mix.

Reviews have been great, with Jade Chang in The New York Times offering: "Weddings and deaths, pregnancies and illnesses, ways for the sisters to measure themselves against one another as they continue to excavate the contours of their parents’ love and hold it up to their own. At this point you may be thinking that there’s no way four women can spend an entire book being obsessed with their happily married parents and that perhaps I just have some sort of older suburban couple kink. (Perhaps!) But here’s the thing - Lombardo renders that obsession with such skill and finely tuned interest that it feels like a quiet subversion of the traditional family saga, a new way for the past to bless or poison the present and an unexpected engine for the revelations about being human that she delivers so beautifully."

What's also interesting about this book is that it's the first published title from acclaimed editor Lee Boudreaux from Doubleday, whose acquisitions over the years have included The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, the Pulitzer Prize winner Less, and two beloved novels from Madeline Miller, Song of Achilles and Circe. The list goes on - Boudreaux has a great eye. In a sense, the book reminds me of one of her early acquisitions at Hachette, Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, in that it skillfully captures several characters' perspectives. Boudreaux also obviously has an ability to find humorous novels with enough depth and heart to be taken seriously by critics. I know what you're thinking - why can't you get an editor in conversation with one of their authors. I would like nothing more, and I've tried. It's not easy!

Boudreaux's new home at Doubleday is also her homecoming. It's where she started (though folks aware of changes in publishing note that it's now part of the Knopf division of Penguin Random House and not the independent publishing house of of the Doubleday family (they later owned the Mets) that owned book clubs and thus made lighter-than-air books with their own printing presses.

I love how Jaclyn Fulwood in Shelf Awareness notes that Lombardo always has one more surprise up her sleeve. The Most Fun We Ever Had is a great literary novel that also has an escapist element - and enough plot to keep you turning the pages. I'm fascinated by how Lombardo supposedly came to the Iowa Writers Workshop with this work in progress, and was able to finely form it into the book it became.  It turned out that Rebecca Makkai (author of The Great Believers, which I'm sure you know already) was one of her teachers at the program, and she's one of the book's biggest advocates.

I'm not going to lie. If I didn't have book club on Monday evening, August 5 (we're talking about Washington Black), I'd be off to the Book Table in Oak Park (or rather, the Beer Shop around the corner) to see Claire Lombardo in conversation with Makkai. But I'm also really excited about our event with Lombardo and Jason Gobble on Tuesday, August 6, and that one I get to attend. Would do both? Is this the literary equivalent of a Phishhead? Maybe Can't make our event on Tuesday? Lombardo and Gobble will also be at Books & Company in Oconomowoc on Wednesday, August 7, also at 7 pm. (Editor's note - she's also at Women and Children first on August 8, in conversation with Elizabeth Taylor).

*Thank you, Todd! Publicists are the unsung heroes of publishing. They get little credit when things go well, but are blamed when things go badly, or at least they were in my day. Did I mention I was a publicist before I was a bookseller? Only 75 times?

Photo credit Claire Lombardo - Michael Lionstar

Events this week - Jazz history with Joey Grihalva and Adekola Adedapo, Lee Zacharias's Great Lakes novel, David Pederson's new mystery, Casey Cep's on the Harper Lee true crime book, Ben L Califf, Claire Lombardo next week

Monday, July 29, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Joey Grihalva, author of Milwaukee Jazz

Milwaukee music and cultural critic Joey Grihalva takes us on a jazz odyssey through his hometown, illuminating the histories and influence of local luminaries. This special evening will also feature songs performed by Milwaukee singer and author of the book’s foreword, Adekola Adedapo.

From Dave Luhrssen in Shepherd Express: "Milwaukee Jazz displays the surprisingly rich history of jazz in our city through an array of black and white photographs from the 1920s through the present. Author Joey Grihalva gathered photos of most of the prominent jazz performers with ties to the city, and drops in a few shots of national artists who played the Jazz Gallery in its original 1970s incarnation."

From the heyday of the 1940s and 1950s to the renaissance of the 1970s, from the streets to the classrooms, grand ballrooms to outdoor festivals, from swing to bebop, smoky bars to dimly lit clubs like the Flame, Thelma's Back Door, and the Jazz Gallery, Grihalva chronicles how Milwaukee has been a hotbed of improvised music, providing a noteworthy contribution to the story of jazz in America.

Joey Grihalva is a Milwaukee writer whose work has appeared in Urban Milwaukee and he is a feature writer for 88Nine Radio Milwaukee. A Milwaukee native, Grihalva holds degrees from University of Minnesota and Concordia University Montreal. Adekola Adedapo is a vocalist based in Milwaukee and Coordinator of Multicultural Programs at Alverno College.

Tuesday, July 30, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Lee Zacharias, author of Across the Great Lake

Midwestern native Lee Zacharias presents her 2019 Michigan Notable Book, the story of a daughter and her father’s journey across Lake Michigan and a secret almost seventy years old.

Zacharias’s historical novel recounts the memories of Fern Halvorson, now in her eighty-fifth year, who tells the story of a childhood journey across Lake Michigan and the secret she has kept since that ill-fated voyage on a huge and powerful ship. This book was the Book Preview event for this week's Shepherd Express.

As his wife lies dying in the brutally cold winter of 1936, Henrik Halvorsen takes his daughter Fern away with him. He captains a great coal-fired vessel, the Manitou, transporting railroad cars across the icy lake. The five-year-old girl revels in the freedom of the ferry, making friends with a stowaway cat and a gentle young deckhand. The sighting of a ghost ship, though, presages danger for all aboard.

Wednesday, July 31, 7 pm, at Boswell:
David S Pederson, author of Death Takes a Bow

Wisconsin author David S Pederson returns to Boswell with the fourth installment of his mystery series starring Detective Heath Barrington. Death Checks In, his previous book in this series, is a 2019 Lambda Literary Award Finalist.

Alan Keyes takes a break from his police duties to scratch his acting itch in a local stage production. But the leading man is murdered during the opening night performance, and Alan’s partner, Detective Heath Barrington, is thrust into the limelight to find the killer. Alan soon learns the theater has a deadly past and ghostly forebodings, including a telegram that seems to have come from the beyond.

Among the large cast of suspects is Oliver Crane, the director whose finances depend on the success of this play, Jazz Monroe, Milwaukee’s sweetheart with a secret, and the handsome actor Henry Hawthorne, who has designs on Alan. When Alan seems to return Henry’s attentions, Heath must put his jealousy and insecurities aside to determine what’s real, what’s illusion, and who’s acting and who’s telling the truth before death takes a bow.

David S Pederson is the Wisconsin author of the Detective Heath Barrington mystery novels, including the 2019 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, Death Checks In. Here's a great review of Death Checks In on the The Novel Approach website.

Thursday, August 1, 2 pm, at Boswell:
Casey Cep, author of Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

Harper Lee biographer and true crime writer Casey Cep visits Boswell. Cep’s New York Times bestseller delves deeper than ever before into Lee’s life after Mockingbird and reveals never before seen research and information about the author’s struggles with writing, drinking, and her decades long fascination with accused murdered Reverend Willie Maxwell.

Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members in the 1970s who escaped justice until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell’s murderer was acquitted. Sitting in the audience during the vigilante’s trial was Harper Lee, who had traveled from New York City to her native Alabama with the idea of writing her own In Cold Blood, the true-crime classic she had helped her friend Truman Capote research seventeen years earlier.

From Michael Lewis's review in The New York Times Book Review: "By the time I got to the section on Harper Lee, I wanted to know more about her than I’ve ever thought I wanted to know — and I didn’t start the book incurious about her. Furious Hours builds and builds until it collides with the writer who saw the power of Maxwell’s story, but for some reason was unable to harness it. It lays bare the inner life of a woman who had a world-class gift for hiding."

Can't attend our event? Cep will be at Room of One's Own in Madison on the evening of July 31 and at Book Stall in Winneta on the evening of August 1.

Thursday, August 1, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Ben L Callif, author of Organumics: An Epigenetic Re-Framing of Consciousness, Life, and Evolution

Milwaukee-based philosopher and scientist Callif appears with his book, which asks, where does consciousness fit into biology, how did life evolve, and what makes us human?

Epigenetics (‘above and beyond genetics’) is an exciting new field that suggests that genetics is not the foundation of inheritance and life. Callif walks us through the history of evolution and modern biology, the basics of genetics and genes, and the complexities of cells and inheritance, and proposes that epigenetics can provide a new perspective on identity, consciousness, and the origins of life itself.

In Organumics, living things are not discrete, isolated units (organisms). Instead, life is an inseparable and interconnected fractal that emerges through the cooperation of self-directed and self-contained individuals - organa. As an organum, we each play a vital role in the direction of evolutionary progress through our thoughts, feelings, and intentions. What we do changes who we are, and who we are influences what our descendants might one day become.

Callif received a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Philosophy from Excelsior College, a bachelor’s degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and a master’s degree in Neuroscience from Marquette University. His current work focuses on circadian rhythms, spinal cord injury, and genetic engineering. He produces the YouTube show The Paradox Perspective.

Tuesday, August 6, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Claire Lombardo, author of The Most Fun We Ever Had, featuring Book Club Recommendations from Jason Gobble

Boswell hosts a book club summer celebration, featuring a talk by Chicago novelist Claire Lombardo about her sweeping debut novel and book club recommendations our Penguin Random House sales rep Jason Gobble. We've even gathered a few recommendations from the author.

Pulitzer Finalist Rebecca Makkai says, “Everything about this brilliant debut cuts deep: the humor, the wisdom, the pathos. Claire Lombardo writes like she’s been doing it for a hundred years, and like she’s been alive for a thousand.” And the Guardian says, “Outstanding… [the] literary love child of Jonathan Franzen and Anne Tyler.”

Spanning nearly half a century, and set against the quintessential American backdrop of Chicago and its prospering suburbs, Lombardo’s debut explores the triumphs and burdens of love, the fraught tethers of parenthood and sisterhood, and the baffling mixture of affection, abhorrence, resistance, and submission we feel for those closest to us. The Most Fun We Ever Had has been named a most anticipated book of the summer by O Magazine, People, Chicago Tribune, and too many more publications to list.

Joumana Khatib talked to Lombardo for The New York Times about writing the book while working for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless: "You have to approach people from a place of zero judgment and complete empathy. It taught me how to interact with any number of people: Here I was, this young kid in her 20s from the Chicago suburbs, and all of a sudden I’m thrown into trying to help a mother of three with three jobs who didn’t know where her kids would sleep that night."

More on Boswell's Upcoming Events page.

Photo credits:
Casey Cep - Kathryn Schulz
Claire Lombardo - Michael Lionstar

Boswell bestsellers, week ending July 27, 2019

Here's what's selling at Boswell.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
2. The Philosophers War (V2), by Tom Miller
3. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
4. The Most Fun We Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo (event at Boswell Tuesday, August 6, 7 pm)
5. City of Girls, by Elizabeth Gilbert
6. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong
7. The New Girl (V19), by Daniel Silva
8. Speaking of Summer, by Kalisha Buckhanon
9. Darkness on the Edge of Town, by Adam Christopher
10. The Chain, by Adrian McKinty

We had a very nice first week out for Speaking of Summer, the new novel from Kalisha Buckhanon. Counterpoint isn't necessarily known as a mystery imprint, but this one's getting a lot of buzz, including being one of Carole E Barrowman's picks for the season.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Outspoken, by Veronica Rueckert
2. Independence Corrupted, by Charles Benjamin Schudson
3. For the Good of the Game, by Bud Selig
4. Samurai, by Michael Wert
5. American Carnage, by Tim Alberta
6. Milwaukee: A City Built on Water, by John Gurda
7. Educated, by Tara Westover
8. Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo
9. The Moment of Lift, by Melinda Gates
10. Nanaville, by Anna Quindlen

Lots of interesting events this week, many of a serious nature, which led to a "summer school" tag. Veronica Rueckert's talk on Outspoken: Why Women's Voices Get Silenced and How to Set Them Free was taped for C-Span, but alas, they did not include the opening performance from Amanda Schoofs and Olivia Valenza. Their loss!

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
2. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
3. Milwaukee Noir, edited by Tim Hennessy
4. The Philosophers Flight (V1), by Tom Miller
5. Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan (In-Store Lit Group discussion, Monday, August 5, 7 pm)
6. Vintage 1954, by Antoine Laurain
7. The Only Woman in the Room, by Marie Benedict
8. Paris by the Book, by Liam Callanan
9. Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
10. The President Is Missing, James Patterson and Bill Clinton

While research could prove me wrong, I perceive that collaborations are rare in our top 10 fiction slots, but this week we've got two. The President Is Missing is the paperback reprint of a jointly written thriller, one with many fiction bestsellers under his belt and the other with several nonfiction bestsellers. Good Omens was originally published in 1990 but is now a streaming series. Our buyer Jason recalls walking into a store and seeing piles of the book autographed by both cowriters - imagine how valuable that would be now!

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. The Less Is More Approach to Wine, by Charles Springfield
2. Milwaukee Jazz, by Joey Grihalva (event at Boswell Monday, July 29, 7 pm)
3. Zoo Nebraska, by Carson Vaughan
4. Locking Up Our Own, by James Forman
5. Calypso, by David Sedaris
6. No Ordinary Time, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
7. 111 Places in Milwaukee You Must Not Miss, by Michelle Madden
8. Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
9. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
10. White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo

In the Milwaukee travel guide highlights competition, the second edition of 100 Things to Do in Milwaukee Before You Die from Jenna Kashou and 111 Places in Milwaukee You Must Not Miss by Michelle Madden are running neck and neck, but Kashou got a bit of a head start. We'll see how this friendly race ends up. I guess either way, Milwaukee wins.

Books for Kids:
1. The Misfits, by James Howe
2. Chrysanthemum, by Kevin Henkes
3. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse with illustrations by Renée Graef
4. Pigeon Has to Go to School, by Mo Willems
5. Just Kidding, by Trudy Ludwig
6. Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon, by Patty Lovell
7. Ada Twist Scientist, by Andrea Beaty, with illustrations by David Roberts
8. Bunnicula, by James Howe
9. Rite of Passage, by Richard Wright
10. A Small Zombie Problem, by K.G. Campbell

Lots of school orders driving our bestsellers this week, with our continuing pop for the local bestseller, Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee.

Over at the Journal Sentinel, Mark Athitakis reviews The Nickel Boys, originally from USA Today: "Race has long been integral to (Colson) Whitehead’s fiction. But he’s typically approached it from slant angles: His 1999 debut, The Intuitionist, 2011’s Zone One, and 2016’s Pulitzer-winning The Underground Railroad all have sci-fi touches. The Nickel Boys is straight-ahead realism, distinguished by its clarity and its open conversation with other black writers: It quotes from or evokes the work of Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison and more."

From Oline Cogdill comes a review of Laura Lippman's Lady in the Lake: "Elegantly written, the novel moves with an eye to how people adapt to changes in culture, or maybe how an evolving culture causes shifts in people. Lady in the Lake works well on several levels — as a look at the mid-1960s and a view of racism, sexism and the intersection of ennui and ambition. It is also a paean to newspapers and the struggle of women reporters during that time."

Daniel on Wisconsin Public Radio's Larry Meiller Show - A list, a link, and a lot of notes

On Monday, I spoke to Larry Meiller on Wisconsin Public Radio about summer reading. I had a great time and I hope you enjoy the show too. Here are some observations.

1. Apparently I think summer means sisters. No less than four of the ten books I recommended at sisters at the center of the stories, including The Lager Queen of Minnesota which comes out today. It's a good thing The Grammarians isn't coming out until September. For heightened effect, authors like books about twins or near-twins. There's another word for that, but I kind of don't like using it anymore (even though it doesn't seem to be an issue in books published right now - I'm wondering if we'll soon see it as an ethnic slur).

2. While as a bookseller, I pride myself as someone who can recommend titles I haven't read, and in fact, sometimes it's better for me not to have read them, I decided that I should probably have read all the books on my list. When I decided that my theme would be road trip, and knowing that Where the Crawdads Sing was the bestselling book of the year on Bookscan to date, I spent this weekend reading this. Not a bad choice, as we still had an extreme heat warning. Now I kind of get the book better.

3. Wow, that's an awfully long car ferry. My road trip idea came from Margaret's front window idea (below - one day we'll figure out how to take nice pictures of this window without the glare). She made a map of the United States and found a book for each state. Not only do we have a lot of events coming up this can tie into, but we actually have a book coming up from Dan Kois called How to Be a Family: The Year I Dragged My Kids Around the World to Find a New Way to Be Together. Now alas, these are also probably places that are beyond driving distance. In any case, I couldn't not mention Vintage 1954, one of my favorite books of the year. So there's Paris. And South Africa for Bianca Marais? We had just spent a lovely afternoon with Marais and the event glow still resonated as I was working on my list.

4. I thought I was done recommending Michael Koryta (the first murder takes place on a campus that's either Bates or Bowdoin in Maine) but my sisters read If She Wakes in quick succession and both of them really liked it, and that put it on my radar.

5. Aside from Vintage 1954, my other mission book on the list is We're All in This Together. Being that it's a Canadian import, I don't think it's gotten the traction it deserves. It's another book, like The Improbability of Love, that was recommended to us by Jason Gobble*. We're currently the #1 bookstore for this book on Treeline, so we're actually competing against ourselves for book sales. I hand-sold a copy one day and Chris followed that up by selling three, including two to two sisters. This book is so good - my friend John sent me a note after I begged him to read it and he wrote back with the subject heading: "I'm in Love." Message: "with Amy Jones." This is a fine message for any bookseller to receive and I recommend that customers send them more often. Not as loved: "Biloxi just didn't do it for me." Sender will remain anonymous. Note to Ms. Miller: It should be clear from this that I tried.

6. Hot and sticky - road trip? I really wanted books for places like Michigan and other states you go to in the summer. I hoped to read something set in New York's North Country. But instead I'm suggesting going to Alabama, North Carolina, and Tallahassee Florida. I'm sweating just thinking about it. But on the other hand, I'm going to South Carolina in September and that should still be quite hot.

7. Fall is coming! I wanted to mention Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys because of that feat of being our bestselling out-of-the-gate non-event fiction book for 2019 so far. But when I thought about it, this book is really the first fall title of 2019. It just feels like fall - important and award-y. He doesn't even have his genre mashup that often happens in his novels. But then Jason noted that historical fiction is a genre. So there, I think.

8. Just missed the list. I offer a list, but one missed. In the past, I have included too many books, but ten really is the right amount for about 45 minutes. The only book that didn't get mentioned is The Most Fun We Ever Had. It's doing great on its own - a solid placing on The New York Times bestseller list and continued strong showing on the Milwaukee Bookscan top 50. And it's very Chicago-y, and we have a lot of customers who are from our neighbor to the south. And what a great event we're going to have for Claire Lombardo on August 6, a book presentation from Jason Gobble, the same rep who introduced us to We're All in This Together. I did notice that he dominated this list too, with four of these ten picks coming from his sales bag.

9. Why do I travel to Madison for a 45 minute show when I could just call in? I just think it's a better show in person. I've done them both ways.

10. I tried not to go to heavy on our event programming, but the three authors I did highlight are also visiting other stores in Wisconsin. Casey Cep will be at Room of One's Own in Madison, J. Ryan Stradal will be at InkLink in East Troy, and Claire Lombardo will be at Books and Company in Oconomowoc. You can do a key word search to easily find out more info. And our upcoming events page is here.

And while I'm thinking about it, you can listen to the Larry Meiller show here.

11. Here's the complete list, alphabetized by title (drop the article, library style), and with the appropriate state, province, or country destination:
-For the Good of the Game, by Bud Selig (Wisconsin)
--Furious Hours, by Casey Cep (Alabama)
--If She Wakes, by Michael Koryta (Maine)
--If You Want to Make God Laugh, by Bianca Marais (South Africa)
--The Lager Queen of Minnesota, by J. Ryan Stradal (Minnesota, of course)
--The Most Fun We Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo (Illinois)
--The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead (Florida)
--Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens (North Carolina)
--Vintage 1954, by Antoine Laurain (France)
--We're All in This Together, by Amy Jones (Ontario)

Want to order a book? Many of our past event books are signed, and you can request to get an upcoming event book signed too.

*Jason also convinced me to read Washington Black for our In-Store Lit Group. We are discussing it on August 5.