Roy Miller's Blog, page 189
May 15, 2017
Michael Ruhlman And Ari Shapiro Visit A Grocery Store To Talk About Buying Food In America : The Salt : NPR
This content was originally published by Laurel Dalrymple on 15 May 2017 | 6:25 pm.
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Author Michael Ruhlman says U.S. grocery stores represent extraordinary luxury that most Americans don’t even think about.
Kelly Jo Smart/NPR
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Kelly Jo Smart/NPR
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Author Michael Ruhlman says U.S. grocery stores represent extraordinary luxury that most Americans don’t even think about.
Kelly Jo Smart/NPR
Grocery stores in America have changed from neighborhood corner markets to multimillion-dollar chains that sell convenience — along with thousands of products — to satisfy the demand of the country’s hungry consumers. What caused this transformation? And what will our grocery stores be like in the future?
Award-winning food writer Michael Ruhlman, author of more than 20 books — including the best-seller The Soul of the Chef and co-author of The French Laundry Cookbook with chef Thomas Keller — examines this phenomenon through the story of the Midwestern grocery chain Heinen’s. His new book, Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America, not only offers insights on how we produce, distribute and buy food, but seeks ways of understanding our changing relationship with what we eat and how we get it.
To talk about some of these issues, NPR’s Ari Shapiro of All Things Considered met with Ruhlman at a Harris Teeter grocery store in Washington, D.C.
Interview Highlights
We’re going to dig into the store and wander around its various sections. But just standing here at the entrance, you can see a bit of produce, a bit of prepared food, a magazine rack, charcoal. Is there something you didn’t know before you started researching the book that you now see in a different way?
The sheer quantity of stuff that we buy and that’s available to us. It represents the extraordinary luxury that Americans have at our fingertips, seven days a week.
We are in the first section that most people usually walk into in a grocery store: produce. It was so interesting to read about the time that you spent with the produce buyers behind Heinen’s — the chain in Cleveland — and the debates they had about whether the cantaloupes were sweet enough, whether there were enough plums, whether anybody would buy the stone fruit after back-to-school in September … the things that we as customers never see.
We don’t. We just expect it to be here: “I want peapods for my stir-fry tonight. Where are they, I expect them to be here.” And [the store] wants you to have them. If you come there and they don’t have peapods, they’re going to lose a customer. The business is run at such a narrow margin that they really want to keep their customers, which is why you’re almost always asked at good grocery stores, “Did you find everything you need?” Because that’s one reason why people don’t come back.
A typical grocery store now sells about 40,000 products, compared with about 7,000 a couple of decades ago, Ruhlman says.
Kelly Jo Smart/NPR
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Kelly Jo Smart/NPR
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A typical grocery store now sells about 40,000 products, compared with about 7,000 a couple of decades ago, Ruhlman says.
Kelly Jo Smart/NPR
Let’s work our way to the packaged stuff in the center. In a typical grocery store, how many different products are you going to find?
There are about 40,000. In the past couple of decades it’s gone up from about 7,000. Food manufacturers have found that they can increase demand and sell more products if they give you more variety. For instance, barbecue sauces: Caribbean jerk, sesame ginger, Hawaiian, teriyaki … when’s it going to end? There’s got to be a limit as to how much we can actually absorb and choose from.
I get the sense that you feel a little conflicted. On one hand, the grocery store is the embodiment of the greatest pinnacle of human achievement, and on the other hand, it’s row after row of depressing, processed, sugar-filled junk.
Yes. It’s the best of America and the worst of America right here in one bright neon-lit landscape. My father died shortly before I started [researching the book]. He loved grocery stores, and that’s part of why I [did this.] I think the grocery store is sort of a nostalgic place. We want to think the people who care about our food care about us. It goes back to that corner grocery store. But I don’t think they do anymore.
So far, it doesn’t seem like grocery delivery has really taken off. Do you see that changing?
I do believe more people will get their commodity groceries — the Cheerios, the cranberry juice, all the stuff in the middle of the grocery store they will get it delivered, because it’s all the same no matter where it comes from. The whole center of the store is going to go away or it’s going to be filled with specialty goods. That’s my hope. Grocery stores are going to shrink and become more specialty stores, and they’re going to sell better food.
Is that, in some sense, a return to what it was like in the early days of the grocery store?
That’s exactly what it’s returning to — when a small grocery would sell a variety of very special hand-picked goods.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Bookstore News: May 15, 2017
This content was originally published by on 15 May 2017 | 4:00 am.
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Kickstarter-supported indie gets a location; ex-bookseller starts massive book tour; Oregon store celebrates a milestone; and more.
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Meet the Agent: Anna Sproul-Latimer of Ross Yoon Agency
This content was originally published by Guest Column on 15 May 2017 | 10:00 am.
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Anna Sproul-Latimer has been with Ross Yoon Agency for her entire 12-year career. She aims to represent writers who “confront some of life’s scariest, most profound, most meaningful experiences and tell the truth about them with pathos and humor”—whether as memoirists, historians, scientists or comedians.
“There is no better high in the world than the one I get when I call an author and tell them they have a book deal,” she says. “Given my client list, I’m often telling that to first-time authors and people from marginalized or progressive communities. Telling them their stories matter—and matter to the tune of hugely competitive advances—makes my heart burst with pride.”
Find her at rossyoon.com and on Twitter @annasproul.
Seeking
“I’m looking for the opposite of what’s in front of us right now. I want to read about love, connection, endurance, gentleness, happy surprises, redemption, cuckoo hobbies, unforgettably good people from history—also death and outer space, just because I’m obsessed with them.”
Writing Tips
“Don’t think a book is going to give you a platform. You’re going to have to bring your platform to a book.”
“Your choice of agent is likely to be more important in the long term than that of your editor or publisher, so shop competitively.”
“Practice getting rejected early and often. Submit freelance pitches with abandon. Hell, maybe even do what one of my clients did and apply for America’s Next Top Model. Get over yourself as completely as you can, as all successful writing careers require a lot of resilience.”
[New Agent Alerts: Click here to find agents who are currently seeking writers]
Pitch Tips
“Google the agent you’re pitching. Personalize your queries. Sound like a person in them.”
“Agents post rules for querying work, so please pay attention to them. The only [acceptable] shortcut is this: If you have a writer friend or acquaintance whose agent might be a good fit for you, by all means ask for a personal introduction.”
“Know what’s selling and how your book fits in the market.”
Query Pet Peeves
“People who don’t research what an agent or agency represents before pitching.”
“People who CC every agent and her mother on one big blanket query.”
“Lechery. If I ever meet you in person, ask me to tell you the story about the creeper query in the big bag of Jolly Ranchers.”
Clients
Colin Dickey, author of Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places (Viking, 2016)
Christine Negroni, author of The Crash Detectives: Investigating the World’s Most Mysterious Air Disasters (Penguin Books, 2016)
Alexandra Petri, author of A Field Guide to Awkward Silences (NAL/Berkley, 2015) and “every Washington Post column that has and will continue to preserve my sanity about politics”
Life in a Nutshell
“DC native, graduate of Columbia (BA) and Oxford (master’s), married to another agent [Matt Latimer, founding partner of Javelin], two little kids.”
Fun Facts
“ I like to walk through cemeteries and Google interesting recent graves to find out the backstory. It gives me a real sense of accomplishment.”
“I love a good bizarre smell. I alternate between perfumes that smell like wood smoke, tomatoes and Coppertone sunblock.”
“I think Myers-Briggs types are like the modern equivalent of phrenology, but for what it’s worth, I’m an ESFP—or, in the words of the incomparable Lindy West, a ‘human vuvuzuela.’”
Favorite
Drink: “Wine. All wine. Not picky.”
Blog: longreads.com
Living author: “Stephen Grosz, Mary Roach and, of course, if you’re my client, you. Only you.”
Dead author: Paul Kalanithi, Jessica Mitford, Jim Henson, Mervyn Peake
Poem: “Years Later” by Lavinia Greenlaw
Quote: “‘A memory is never finished as long as you are alive.’ That’s from the movie Before Sunset. (Hello and welcome to my high school yearbook page.)”
Place: Oxford, England, and Sils-Maria, Switzerland
Most Proud Of
“My kids, and giving some amazingly talented writers the confidence to go out and change the world.”
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The Story of Thor, in the Voice of Neil Gaiman
This content was originally published by LIDIA YUKNAVITCH on 15 May 2017 | 11:00 am.
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The prime character tales begin with Loki stealing Thor’s wife’s hair. Waking up one morning to find his wife, Sif, bald to the scalp, Thor goes straight to that conniving troublemaker, the shape-shifting crafty misanthrope who lives among the gods, and threatens to break every bone in his body. Thor being Thor, he extends the threat to include every single day for the rest of Loki’s life, should he fail to return Sif’s gorgeous golden locks. Thus begins the story “The Treasures of the Gods,” which goes on to reveal the origins of some of the most important magical objects in all of the myths: Odin’s spear and arm cuff, Thor’s hammer.
In “The Master Builder,” a newcomer arrives in Asgard right about the time that the gods are discussing the need for a wall to protect their kingdom. He is “a big man, dressed as a smith, and behind him trudged a horse — a stallion, huge and gray, with a broad back.” The smith offers to build the gods a wall in a seemingly impossible amount of time. Loki talks the gods into promising the smith the sun, the moon and the goddess Freya’s hand in marriage should he complete the wall in time, an effort he persuades everyone will fail. Only Freya seems to suspect that Loki is terribly wrong. “I hate you so much,” she tells him, a line that made me laugh out loud to no one because that’s just what I’d say in her position, and Gaiman’s deadpan voice correctly conveys a flat yet homicidal tone.
I do wish there were more women-centered stories in the collection. Gaiman concedes this omission in his introduction, explaining that he would have liked to retell the tales of Eir, the doctor of the gods; or Lofn, the comforter; or Sjofn, the goddess of love; and Vor, the goddess of wisdom, but he didn’t have enough to go on. Still, he does an admirable job weaving the women in, including Freya.
And really, the listening is the thing. Sure, I was stirred when I curled up with the book and read about the death of Odin’s second son, Balder, how his wife “saw her husband’s body carried past, …her heart gave out in her breast, and she fell dead onto the shore. They carried her to the funeral pyre, and they placed her body beside Balder’s.” But when I listened to it, nestled in my bed in the dark with no light but my blue wave projector (what?) casting rhythmic cerulean images on my ceiling and walls, I bawled. Hearing the great myths spoken in a language from my present with a trace of ancient history physically broke me open, Gaiman’s voice bringing the characters to life.
In the introduction, Gaiman emphasizes how the passing on of oral traditions is a vital art. He dedicates the book to his grandson. His hope is that readers will feel compelled to retell these stories. He doesn’t mention something else, but I can hear it in his voice, something we could all use a little more of just now, in the dark: delight.
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Bookstore Sales Rebounded in March
This content was originally published by on 15 May 2017 | 4:00 am.
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After falling in the first two months of the year, compared to the same period in 2016, bookstore sales rose in March. They climbed 2.4%, to $725 million.
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7 Tips on Writing Great Mystery and Suspense Novels
This content was originally published by Brian A. Klems on 15 May 2017 | 4:00 pm.
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When plotting my new mystery and suspense novel Ghost Maven, I was inspired by the works of Alfred Hitchcock, whom I have written three books about. Hitchcock was dubbed the ‘Master of Suspense’ for very good reason. He knew how to manipulate an audience and keep them watching. In the same way, here are seven tips to remember when writing suspense to keep your reader turning pages.
This guest post is by Tony Lee Moral. Moral is the author of three books on Alfred Hitchcock; Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie; The Making of Hitchcock’s The Birds and Alfred Hitchcock’s Movie Making Masterclass.His new novel, a Hitchcockian suspense mystery, Ghost Maven, is published by Cactus Moon Publications.
Connect with Tony on Facebook or Twitter @TonyLeeMoral.
1. The number one rule of suspense is to give your reader information.
You can’t expect a reader to have anxieties if they have nothing to be anxious about. If you tell the reader that there’s a bomb in the room and that it’s going to go off in five minutes, that’s suspense. The suspense in Ghost Maven is what will happen when Alice finds out that Henry is a ghost? The suspense drives the narrative and keeps your reader interested.
2. Use counterpoint and contrast.
“Suspense doesn’t have any value unless it’s balanced by humor,” said Hitchcock, who was famous for his macabre sense of humor in films like The Trouble With Harry. In Frenzy, Hitchcock liked the extremes between comedy and horror, and used humor to great effect between the Chief Inspector and his wife. ‘I invented the Chief Inspector’s wife so as to permit myself to place most of the discussion of the crime outside a professional context,’ said Hitchcock. “And I get comedy to sugar-coat the discussions by making the wife a gourmet cook. So this inspector comes home every night to discussion of the murders over very rich meals.” Comedy can make your writing more dramatic and give your reader a chance to reflect on the suspense.
3. A good story should start with an earthquake and be followed by rising tension.
Some of Hitchcock’s best stories start with a bang, such as the chase along San Francisco’s twilight rooftops in Vertigo, or the strangulation murder at the beginning of Rope. I start Ghost Maven with the heroine in deep water and in danger when a kayaking trip in Monterey Bay goes terribly wrong.
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4. Never use a setting simply as background.
Use it 100%. Hitchcock was adamant that the backgrounds must be incorporated into the drama and made it a rule to exploit elements that are connected with a location. When writing my locations, I also thought how they could be used dramatically. In Ghost Maven, when Alice climbs the Point Pinos Lighthouse, the oldest lighthouse on the West Coast, it twice becomes the setting for her attempted murder.
5. At the same time, avoid the cliché in your locations, such as staging a murder in a dark alleyway or at night.
As Hitchcock loved contrast, he would often stage his most macabre scenes in the most congenial of settings, such as the murder-dinner party in Rope, or the attempted assassination of Cary Grant’s character in North by Northwest, which takes place in brilliant sunshine inside a crop field. This sense of the unexpected, and the idea that turmoil can erupt at any moment, will keep your readers on their guard.
6. Keep your story moving.
The sudden switches of location in a book are also very important to ensure your readers are alert. Hitchcock knew that one of the ways in which suspense drama must change is in its setting. The Orient Express, for example, has had its day as a scene for spy melodrama. The same could be true for narrow stairways and high towers. In North by Northwest, Hitchcock wanted to stage a scene on Mount Rushmore, and like The 39 Steps, wrote a quick succession of scenes that led up to the exciting denouement. Similarly, I start my novel with a quick succession of chapters, with locations and settings that will be crucial for the action later on.
7. Avoid stereotypes whether it’s in character or plot.
Hitchcock has given us some of the most memorable villains to grace the screen. That’s because he avoided the cliché through character and made his villains like Brandon in Rope, or Bob Rusk in Frenzy, attractive. “All villains are not black, and all heroes are not white. There are grays everywhere. You can’t just walk down Fifth Avenue and say he’s a villain and he’s a hero. How do you know?” said Hitchcock. Make your villains attractive, so that they can get near their victims.
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Brian A. Klems is the editor of this blog, online editor of Writer’s Digest and author of the popular gift book Oh Boy, You’re Having a Girl: A Dad’s Survival Guide to Raising Daughters.
Follow Brian on Twitter: @BrianKlems
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To Make America Great Again, Give Your Kids Chores
This content was originally published by JENNIFER SZALAI on 15 May 2017 | 4:00 pm.
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The result is a strange hybrid of a book, part how-to manual, part jeremiad, filled with rambling disquisitions on the likes of Augustine, Teddy Roosevelt and the philosopher John Dewey, who serves as the villain of Sasse’s chapters on education, wherein families seeking to nurture their children’s individual “souls” do battle with a “homogenized” public school system in thrall to Dewey’s “totalizing goals.” (It should be said that this is a rather creative interpretation of Dewey’s work. It should also be said that Sasse’s children are home schooled, and that he unequivocally praised Betsy DeVos — who sponsored unregulated charter school expansion in Michigan, with poor results — as an “excellent pick” for secretary of education.) Studded throughout are listicles of tips that can get highly specific, like forgoing flotation devices in the water for children (“Let go and re-grab them … and then celebrate their survival”); sending “your 2-year-old to get your socks every morning”; and enlisting your offspring to “build a pet cemetery.” He waxes nostalgic about “aging members of the Greatest Generation,” especially his grandmother Elda, a tiny dynamo of a woman who jury-rigged her newborn baby’s bassinet to a “lumbering old John Deere as she taught herself to harvest.”
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All of this makes “The Vanishing American Adult” both voluble and evasive at once, as Sasse layers tale upon tale, repeats modifiers and metaphors (at least three separate mentions of “bubble wrap,” all of them pejorative), and serves up bland platitudes (“our common humanity”) without venturing much by way of political specifics. In other words, this is a consummate politician’s book, and Sasse declares he’s writing not “as a senator, but rather as a citizen, as a dad, as a reader, and as a former college president.” What he’s advising is simply so much “common sense.”
As one of the first so-called Never Trump Republicans before the presidential election, he has curiously little to say about the new president, other than to refer in passing to having “said a number of things critical of the honesty and trustworthiness of both major party presidential front-runners” before returning to his daughter’s month on the cattle ranch. Indeed, during the election campaign Sasse roundly characterized Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as “both liars” who were one and the same, which just goes to show: Having a grandmother who attached a bassinet to her tractor doesn’t necessarily endow you with an ability to make distinctions or a sense of proportion.
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Nor does it save you from a sentimentality that seems almost willfully impervious to the facts at hand. As much as Sasse wants to indict millennials for our “crisis” of “character,” young Americans voted decisively against the presidential candidate who lacked any governing experience, bragged about groping women’s genitals and actively courted the bigoted vote; it was voters over the age of 65 who favored Trump by an 8 percent margin. To read “The Vanishing American Adult” is to reside in a parallel universe where older Americans stoically uphold standards of decency and responsibility, instead of electing to the country’s highest office a reality-TV star with six business bankruptcies to his name who brazenly flouts both.
But it’s more demanding to reckon with stubborn facts than it is to resort to clichés about the Problem With Kids Today and how “suffering can be virtuous.” (That this book purports to be so above partisan politics that it’s blurbed by both Marco Rubio and Cory Booker is as telling as it is unsurprising.) Considering all of Sasse’s talk about hard work, maybe the most peculiar aspect of “The Vanishing American Adult” is how it takes the easy way out: Sasse, a Republican senator and history Ph.D. who holds actual power during a particularly fraught moment, decided that now was the time for him to publish what ultimately amounts to a self-help book for well-to-do parents.
Still, there is something politically coherent in this. The Republican Party has been pushing a hyperindividualistic ideology for decades, fixated on the idea that the solution to every problem lies with each American falling back on his or her own personal reserves of “self-discipline and self-control.” In this unforgiving cosmology, there isn’t much room for forces that aren’t so amenable to an individual’s will — and sure enough, there isn’t much room for them in Sasse’s book either. Economic scarcity? We’re an “exceptionally prosperous nation” whose biggest problems are the “surplus creature comforts” that “make a civilization fat and unambitious.” (He approvingly quotes a friend whose travels to Ecuador made him “realize that America’s poor are rich by comparison.”) Racism? The United States is now “free of the racist legal barriers that held back many Americans” and is “finally transcending our slaveholding past.” Sexism? What’s that?
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It must be nice to be Ben Sasse, in a position to pick and choose the hardships one will adopt in order to learn some life lessons — and to feel morally superior for having triumphed over phony adversity. But to anyone who buys into the notion, especially now, that the country’s political future can be rescued by getting our toddlers to bring us our socks, one can only say: Good luck with that.
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‘Show me the money!’: the self-published authors being snapped up by Hollywood | Books
This content was originally published by Danuta Kean on 15 May 2017 | 3:32 pm.
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After watching Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, self-published author Mark Dawson was inspired to create his own answer to the film’s heroine Beatrix “Black Mamba” Kiddo. And now Dawson – and his character government-employed assassin Beatrix Rose – are set to take on Hollywood, with his series on the verge of a major television deal, complete with a “triple A” producer.
Admitting he had a “‘holy shit’ moment” when he was told who the producer was, the Salisbury-based former lawyer said he had initially signed a “shopping agreement” after an approach through his website. “They have attached a writer and an extremely well-known Hollywood figure and director to it,” Dawson says. “The people linked are all serious players – household names – and they have pitched it to half a dozen studios and from that they have got an agreement [to develop it] for television.”
Dawson wasn’t always Hollywood fodder. Sales of his first self-published novel, 2012’s Black Mile, only trickled in – until he took Amazon’s advice and offered it to readers for free. In one weekend, his novel was downloaded 50,000 times. Dawson built his audience from there, spending hundreds of pounds a day on Facebook advertising and writing on his commute. After writing 23 books in four years, he says his annual income is now in the “high six figures”.
Details of Dawson’s TV deal are under wraps, and he says it is expected to be finalised in the next few days. But his is just the latest in a line of deals between studios and self-published authors, including AG Riddle and Hugh Howey, who have been targeted by studios after the successes of Andy Weir’s The Martian and EL James’s Fifty Shades franchise. AG Riddle’s Departure series was scooped up by Fox-based producer Steve Tzirlin in a six-figure deal, while Howey’s dystopian sci-fi novel Wool was signed up by Ridley Scott and 20th Century Fox.
As long as self-published authors take on an agent they should be fine. Otherwise they are mincemeat
Andrew Lownie, literary agent
Bestselling self-published authors attract producers because they have a proven track record if they stay on Amazon sales charts over time, Howey said. “Hollywood is always looking for a built-in audience. They want to know they’ll recoup their investment,” he says. “Modern films easily cost $100m to make, usually more. There isn’t much room for risk here.”
Another attraction in the litigious world of film, according to producer Doreen Spicer, is that these self-published books provide insurance. “There’s a level of security that the story is original and not based on a pitch or idea from a writer in the room,” said Spicer, whose credits include US sitcom The Wannabes and animated series The Proud Family. “A producer can safeguard themselves from lawsuits by purchasing or licensing copyrights.”
One of the most high-profile successes is Andy Weir’s The Martian: a sci-fi thriller set on the red planet that the author self-published as a Kindle ebook for 99 cents. The 2015 film adaptation, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon as Weir’s leading astronaut Mark Watney, made $630m worldwide.
Matt Damon as Mark Watney in the film adaptation of Andy Weir’s self-published novel The Martian. Photograph: Allstar/20th Century Fox
“You never know how a film will turn out, but the film version of The Martian is incredible and I know Andy is thrilled with how it came out,” says David Fugate, who became Weir’s agent before the film deal went through – a precaution he warns self-published authors to consider: “In book publishing, the agreement licenses the publisher a specific set of rights and typically anything that’s not covered in the agreement is reserved for the author. In the film industry, it’s exactly the opposite … the only rights reserved to the author are spelled out in a single clause. So if it’s not mentioned in that clause, it no longer belongs to the author, but to the purchaser of the rights. And of course, when you’re licensing that broad a range of rights, having a clear understanding of what you should be paid for all those rights is critical.”
“As long as self-published authors take on an agent they should be fine. Otherwise they are mincemeat,” says literary agent Andrew Lownie, citing the length and complexity of film and television contracts (a typical contract from Universal is around 50 pages). In that contract, an author may not just be signing away the right to adapt a book – but repeat fees, merchandising, DVD rights, even every character and storyline in the book or series could be up for discussion. “They buy everything up – titles, characters, stories – for as long as they possibly can,” Nick Marston says, who heads the film division of agency Curtis Brown. If authors do not get advice, the deal they sign may prevent future films being made if the original producer fails to get their project of the ground, he adds: “I have been involved with so many projects where the rights have been all tied up in a deal and it stops anything being made.”
Unwitting authors can also mistakenly sign away the right to make money from future books. “I’ve seen film contracts that have been drafted in a way that means they have been given publishing rights to the authors’ work,” warns publishing contract consultant Stephen Aucutt.
After approaches from everyone from an Oscar-winning director to a Disney Channel producer, Jeff Rivera has gone it alone to launch a streamed TV show, I Got You, based on his self-published novels about LGBT life of the same name. Money was not the priority, he says; the rise of Netflix and social media convinced him to take creative control.
“I have readers around the world in Spanish, Arabic and English-speaking countries,” he added. Streamed television was an opportunity to reach a market hungry for LGBT content but denied it by local traditional routes. “There are millions of Arabs who are LGBT or open-minded heterosexuals, who don’t have access to anything through local traditional media so watch things through social media,” he added. “It is a real opportunity to tell my stories to more people.”
But for others, it is all about the cash. Thriller writer Russell Blake, who has been approached by four large production companies in Hollywood for his Jet series, said he had “never reached a suitable arrangement”. Self-published authors run a risk of being sold cheap, he added. “I’m a whore. Show me the money.”
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Tell Us 5 Things About Your Book: Rafe Bartholomew on Growing Up at McSorley’s
This content was originally published by JOHN WILLIAMS on 14 May 2017 | 9:03 pm.
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Rafe Bartholomew
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Leslie Gonzales
“The clientele is motley,” Joseph Mitchell wrote about McSorley’s, the fabled East Village ale house, in The New Yorker in 1940. First opened in 1854, the bar’s crowd was no less motley when the author Rafe Bartholomew started going there as a child in the 1970s. There, his father would tend bar while the regulars helped babysit Rafe. “I was 5, 6, 7 years old, and every weekend I got to spend a few hours hanging out with grown men,” Bartholomew writes in “Two and Two: McSorley’s, My Dad, and Me,” his new memoir. “Not just any men, but characters — workingmen, old men, homeless men, policemen and firemen.” He would eventually follow the path of his father, Geoffrey, and work behind the bar. “Two and Two” is about Geoffrey’s 45-year career as a bartender; the deep and abiding bond between father and son; and the stories and people that made McSorley’s a city institution. Below, Bartholomew tells us what led him to write such a personal story, what surprises he encountered in the process and more.
When did you first get the idea to write this book?
The long answer is just by nature of growing up around the bar and eventually getting into writing. It probably was inevitable that I would end up writing about it and my dad’s career. The answer of when it actually became an idea to try and write a book is that, in 2010, the day my first book came out — which is not at all related, it’s a sports book about basketball in the Philippines — my agent took me to lunch to say congratulations. She asked, “What’s your next book?” I hadn’t thought of anything. I was totally unprepared. I was like, “Well, I grew up at McSorley’s.” Her eyes got kind of wide, and she said: “Well, that should have been your first book. What’s wrong with you?”
I wasn’t always sure. I said it was inevitable, but I wasn’t always sure if I actually wanted to do it. I was always wary of exploiting my life and my dad’s story. I think that’s why it didn’t happen right away. It took me a while to figure out how to write about the place.
What’s the most surprising thing you learned while writing “Two and Two”?
Some of the research I did was reading through my dad’s old journals. He kept them for 20 years, steady. We’ve always been close. Any time I’ve lived in New York as an adult, we’ve just lived here together. Though we’re father and son, we can be pretty open and informal. He said, “You want to read the journal, knock yourself out.”
Photo
Rafe Bartholomew’s “Two and Two: McSorley’s, My Dad, and Me.”Credit
Sonny Figueroa/The New York Times
It begins when he was in college in Ohio, and goes through him moving to New York. Reading through the entry after his first night in New York, it says: “Went to McSorley’s Ale House. Drank with two English tourists. Great conversation.” He doesn’t think of it as the beginning of his McSorley’s story, because he ended up living above it three years later, and ended up working there two years after that. But learning that my dad actually drank at the bar on his very first night in New York City, in 1967, was almost too perfect.
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BookExpo 2017: Wild Rumpus is PW’s Bookstore of the Year
This content was originally published by on 12 May 2017 | 4:00 am.
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The Minneapolis-based Wild Rumpus, which is marking its 25th anniversary in September, is the first children’s bookstore to win the award.
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