Alex George's Blog, page 12

Spot the Difference

I've written here at some length and on numerous occasions about just how much I love the cover of A GOOD AMERICAN.  I think it oozes class and is both evocative and beautiful.  Of course I am biased, but most people I've spoken to seem pretty keen on it, too.

But these things, I am learning, are fluid and can always be improved.  Despite all the swooning over the cover, Amy had mentioned when we were in Minneapolis that she was having second thoughts about the lettering.  She wondered whether there was too much curlicue, if it might all be a little too feminine.  I thought no more about the conversation until an email arrived last week with a new cover with redesigned lettering on it.

And just when I thought I couldn't love something more, I discover that actually I can.  Here is the old cover:

And here is the new one, with the revised, simpler, title font:

I really like this a lot.  It's unfussy, and (I think) even more elegant that its slightly more flamboyant predecessor.  What do you think?

What I like best about this story is how it shows that really, really good editors and publishers don't stop just because they know they have something good.  They are constantly searching for ways to improve the product.  No detail is too small to be re-examined.

Lucky is the author who gets to work with such people.

A Sort of Homecoming (with apologies to U2)

Tomorrow is a big day for Columbia and the University of Missouri. It is the 100th Annual Homecoming. Not being from round these parts, I'm not entirely sure what homecoming means or what its purpose is.  There is a parade – I know this, because my children will be in it. And, naturally, there is a big football game involved. So, in honor of all that, I'm re-posting an old blog about the manifold mysteries of college sports.

A couple of years ago, for a funny five minutes – actually it was about a week – the Missouri Tigers, the University of Missouri football team, was ranked the number one college football team in the nation.

It had been nearly fifty years since it had last happened.  People wandered about with slightly dazed, disbelieving expressions on their faces.  Nobody could talk about much else.  Everyone was cheerful.  The whole atmosphere in Columbia changed.  As a town we can occasionally be guilty of a little too much municipal pride, which sometimes morphs into self-congratulatory preening.  But, my God.  Number one in the nation.  In football.  We were floating on air.

College sports matter in this country.  It took me a while to understand this.  The only college event that anyone pays any attention to in England is the Oxford v Cambridge boat race, possibly one of the most tedious sporting spectacles in the world.  I suppose tradition has something to do with it.

But back to Missouri.  Even when the Tigers were a nothing team, regularly getting thrashed by all comers, 60,000 people would pull on black and gold and cram into Memorial Stadium to watch them lose again.  Sixty thousand.  That's more than double the number of people who went to watch Arsenal, the greatest soccer team ever, when they played at Highbury.

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Just another Saturday afternoon in Columbia

So, what's it all about?  Well, I think the phenomenom can be explained on a number of levels.

Unabashed loyalty to one's alma mater has a lot to do with it.  People over here identify themselves with their school more than people in England, and (for the record) I think this is a good thing.  Alumni flock back to every home game to revisit the scenes of their student days.  Colleges make fortunes flogging hats, sweatshirts, and other apparel with logos.  When I was in college the only people who wore "Oxford University" sweatshirts were tourists, but when I walk through the MU campus 90% of students are festooned with black and gold clothing with "MIZZOU" written on it somewhere.  Heavens, even my parents own some of that stuff.
Tailgating.  This was a revelation to me.  Before Arsenal matches I would meet up with my friend Raffi for a pint before the game and make gloomy predictions about the scoreline.  They do things differently here.  People turn up hours (and hours) before the game is due to begin to indulge in Bacchanalian feasting that would have made Rabelais proud.  Epicurean bounty of unimaginable excess comes out of the back of people's pick-up trucks.  It's quite astonishing.  Many, many people have been turning up to football games for years and have never seen a ball being thrown or kicked.  They spend all day out in the parking lot, eating and drinking.  (Of course, depending on your opinion of football, this makes a lot of sense.)
Sports mania.  Americans love their sports, really they do, and there just aren't enough pro games to keep everyone satisfied.  The market abhors a vacuum, and all that, and so people follow college games as well.
Sporting Spectacle.  If you've ever watched an NBA game (note to my English readers: this is basketball) it's one of the most boring things in the world.  Why?  Because the athletes are too good.  They almost never miss a shot.  With college sports, though, although the standard can be high, there's always a danger of somebody screwing up, big time.  (See, for example, fourth quarter of Missouri vs Nebraska, 2009.)  And while it might not be good for your nerves, it does make things more interesting for the neutral.
Social Spectacle.  Tubas!  Sousaphones!  Brass bands marching in perfect formation!  Cheerleaders.  Elite cheerleaders (oh yes.)  Drunken students with painted faces yelling incoherently at the roving ESPN cameraman.  Canons.  It's all very strange, but rather fun.

Now, certain people take huge exception to all this.  Why, for example, do the football and basketball coaches get paid a gazillion times more than the most prestigious academic appointees?  Isn't this all topsy-turvy?  Well, yes, of course, it is.  But come on.  Does it really matter?  Eat, drink, be merry, and if your team is getting its collective asses whipped, retreat to the parking lot and have another beer.  There's always next year.

Happy Homecoming, MU.  Here's to the next hundred.

Audiobook!

Over the past few years I've occasionally given readings of A GOOD AMERICAN while it was still a work in progress.  Invariably at the Q & A part of the event, someone would put up their hand and ask, often a little tentatively, "Shouldn't you be reading that with an American accent?"

It's a fair question.

The answer is that yes, I should: the novel's narrator, James Meisenheimer, is an American, through and through, born and raised in deepest, darkest Missouri.

The answer is also that no, I absolutely should not: my American accent is terrible, beyond strange, and if I tried it people would be so perplexed and offended that they wouldn't pay any attention to what I was reading.  In terms of awful mangling, it's somewhere beyond Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins, which is really saying something.

So, no surprise then that I was not invited to read for the audiobook version of A GOOD AMERICAN.

Instead the novel is going to be read by a gentleman named Gibson Frazier.  This is what he sounds like, reading the opening passage of the novel:

Just as every reader brings their own perspectives and experiences to a book, and so makes every act of reading a unique experience, so every person who auditioned to read for the audiobook interpreted the words on the page in a different way.  It was fascinating to hear the choices each person made – where to stop, where to pause, what to emphasize.  For me, it breathed fresh life into text that I had (as you might imagine) read more times than is probably strictly healthy.

It's a funny sensation, though, hearing your words read by someone else.  Perhaps it shouldn't be, given that the act of writing a book is itself an extended act of mimicry, especially when you choose a first person narrator to tell your story.  But the more I've listened to Mr. Frazier read this piece – this was his audition – the more I've grown to like it.  He has given my words a rich new dimension.  I'm looking forward to listening to more.

I confess I have no experience of audiobooks as a consumer and so I come to this all as a complete novice.  I'd love to know what you think.  Did you enjoy the reading?

Always, there was music.

… So goes the first line in A GOOD AMERICAN.

And it's true – there's a lot of music in the book.  There's a reason why the cover has a cornet with notes spilling out of it.  The story begins with a love affair ignited by the power of song, and throughout the novel, music plays a central role in the characters' lives.  I'm a music nut, I may as well admit it.  I've always enjoyed writing about music – it's not always easy to do, but I relish the challenge.  (By the way, my prize for most eye-popping and true depiction of music on the written page goes to: THE TIME OF OUR SINGING by Richard Powers.  Utterly brilliant.)

There's an eclectic mix of styles in the novel – opera, ragtime, early jazz from New Orleans, bluegrass, barbershop singing, and good old rock and roll.  When we were discussing how we might make A GOOD AMERICAN fun for reading groups, we thought it would be a nice idea to put together a playlist of the music featured, so that people could listen while they sit around and gossip discuss the novel.

If you'd like to hear that playlist, here's what you have to do:

1.  If you haven't already done so, join Spotify.  (If you haven't joined, you should anyway.  Spotify gives you access to 15,000,000 songs that you can listen to via online streaming.  It has totally changed the way I listen to music and is responsible for way too many late nights recently.)  There are three different levels of membership, and one of them is free, so it doesn't have to cost you a penny.

2.  Once you've done that, click on this link, and it should take you directly to the playlist.  If you click the "Subscribe" button, you'll be able to follow along as more songs get added – which they surely will.

Enjoy!  Have a listen – and of course I'd love to know what you think.  And is there a particular novel that you've read that captures the spirit of music especially well?  If so, please let me know – I'll check it out.

It's Social Media Gone Mad

Just wanted to bring you up to date on a couple of social meeja developments round these parts.

First of all, with many thanks to everyone who took the time to leave comments, I have no chosen a new design for this website.  It was the most popular one, as voted for by you.  Click here to see what it looks like – complete with obligatory Latin nonsense.  We will be working hard to get this up and running (and in English) as quickly as we can.

Secondly, I now have a Facebook Author Page – as opposed my, um, regular person Facebook page.  This is where I will be posting all book-related stuff on Facebook from now on, which will allow me to keep my ordinary Facebook page for videos of cute kittens sitting on record players, etc.  If you have a moment, please go to the new page and click "Like".  Being an author I suffer acutely from low self-esteem issues and desperately need validation from the rest of you people.  Also I have promised to give away one of my few remaining galleys of A GOOD AMERICAN to a lucky winner once we hit 100 "Likes".  Yes, people, that is how desperate I am.

And, of course, you can always follow my random musings on twitter – which is actually where I spend most of my time these days my social media outlet of choice.  You can see the sort of drivel I post there in the column on the right hand side of this page.

I am also trying to find out more about tumblr, because I am sure that if I put my mind to it I could spend even more time doing this stuff and not, you know, actually writing my new book.  (I'm hoping my editor doesn't read this blog.)  Anyway, watch this space, and in the meantime, come on in and join the fun. The water's lovely.

[Update on the update]

PS: Oh, and I almost forgot – I'm on Goodreads, too.  If you haven't joined yet, you should. It's basically Facebook for book lovers. There are great discussions and I love to see what other people are reading.  It's like wandering through someone's house and staring at their bookshelves.  Which we all do anyway, right?  Right?  Oh.

Booksellers Roll! – MIBA Trip – Part 2

Continuing from my last post…

After the excitement of the previous evening, I had the following morning to myself.  I stayed in my room, grudgingly allowing the real world to intrude for a bit as I did some legal work and answered non-book-related emails.

Later on, I went out and explored downtown a little more, and went on a small expedition through those overhead tunnels I had spotted the previous day.  I ate lunch at a restaurant near the hotel which was full of men in suits with very loud voices.  I looked a little out of place in my rather unkempt get-up (I was going for the tousled author look, you see.)  I had, as usual, taken a book with me for company, and I enjoyed a quiet hour with it, my food, and a pint of very respectable  local ale.

I arrived at the trade show about an hour before the mass-author-signing session, where I was due to sit down and sign galleys of A GOOD AMERICAN.  I had been hoping to see piles of my book at the Penguin stand, but to my disappointment, there were none.  At least, I was disappointed until Joe Cain, the local area rep, explained that they had all been snapped up by show attendees by noon that day.  It looks as if the Amy Einhorn magic was at work again – people had apparently been swarming around the table, eager to grab a copy.  The buzz, Joe assured me happily, was beginning.

I grinned rather stupidly at this, and gave myself a little pinch.

For the next hour or so I wandered around the show, meeting lots of booksellers and chatting with the Penguin representatives there.  At 4.30 I sat at my allotted table in the hall next to where the trade show was taking place.  The venue used to be an old railroad station, and has been beautifully restored.  On the table in front of me were stacks and stacks of galleys of my book.  It's a delicious, but slightly vertiginous, feeling, the first time you see your book amassed in any kind of meaningful quantity.  (Up until that point the most I had seen at any one time was five.)  As I sat down at the table, the first people arrived and I began signing, smiling, and chatting to the friendly folks who lined up to talk to me.  Many people were good enough to tell me that they'd heard good things about the novel on the floor of the trade show that morning.  By the end of my allotted half hour my hand was sore, and my signature had morphed into some Frankenstein version of its usual self.

At the table next to me, author Peter Geye was signing copies of his debut novel, Safe From the Sea – which, not entirely coincidentally, happened to be the book I had been reading that lunchtime.  It is a wonderful book, deeply touching and beautifully written (and highly recommended – it's just come out in paperback.)  I was excited to learn that Peter would be sitting next to me – he is published by one of my favorite presses, Unbridled Books, an outfit that only seems to publish brilliant books.

After the show Peter and I sat down and enjoyed a couple of beers together.  We swapped publishing stories and compared notes.  Writing can be a lonely business and it's always helpful to exchange stories with others who have gone through the same thing.  And, I must confess, I always get a little star-struck when I meet writers I really admire.  (It helps when they are warm and funny, too.)

The following morning I flew back to Kansas City and picked up the children on my way back from the airport.  It had been a brief but exciting trip, and thoroughly good fun.  I hope I'll be able to return to Minneapolis soon.

Booksellers Rock! – MIBA Trip – Part 1

I love booksellers.  There is no feeling finer than walking out of a bookshop laden down with all sorts of books that you didn't know you wanted or needed when you walked in.  Whole new worlds lie inside those covers – and now they're yours, all thanks to the person who helped you choose 'em.  So, yay booksellers.  You rock.  Every last one of you.

In view of that, I was really looking forward to my trip last week in Minneapolis, visiting the annual trade show for the Midwest Booksellers Association.  This is an opportunity for booksellers from across the region to get together and gossip enthusiastically learn all about the books that will be published in the next several months.  A lot of the industry's heavy hitters were in attendance to promote their new titles.

I had a peaceful flight in from Kansas City, during which time I remembered the joys of flying solo after my trip to San Francisco with my children.  One of my indulgences when traveling is to buy magazines which I usually would not dream of picking up.  This time I read Vanity Fair.  At a party the previous week two different people had told me about an article in the current edition (October 2011) which gives a great overview of the state of the publishing industry at the moment.  It was well worth the read.  The article concentrates on the publishing process of one book in particular, The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, which sounds amazing and has immediately gone to the top of my To-Be-Read list.

I was met at Minneapolis/St Paul airport (which is the nicest, cleanest airport I have visited) by a very nice man in a very nice car and driven downtown to my hotel, which was also very nice.  That evening Penguin were hosting a dinner to introduce me to some of the most influential booksellers in the Midwest.  My fabulous editor and publisher, Amy Einhorn, was flying into town for the occasion.  This is what is commonly referred to as a pretty big deal.  I had been told by the Penguin publicity team that I would be expected to say a few words about A GOOD AMERICAN, and so I wandered about downtown, looking about me and trying to work out what to say.  Downtown Minneapolis is very clean.  The architecture is striking, a pleasing mixture of achingly (but tastefully) modern and well-preserved older buildings.  There didn't appear to be many people on the streets, which I found curious – until I looked up.  Due the inclement weather that they suffer for much of the year, there is a system of overground tunnels that link the buildings together, allowing people to scuttle across the area without ever having to face the elements outside.  Above me were crowds of Minnesotans scurrying about their business like lab mice.

When I met Amy in the lobby of the hotel at the appointed time, it turned out that we had both been impressed by the same feature in our rooms – impressed enough, indeed, that we had both sent a photo to our children:

Yes, the bath had a television installed over the taps.  I'm honestly not sure why I was tickled by this – I didn't turn the thing the whole time I was there – perhaps it was the unabashed decadence of it that appealed.  Anyway, the fact that we had both sent photographs home was even funnier than than the thing itself.  I hadn't seen Amy since a long breakfast in New York a few months previously, and we spent a great hour catching up over cocktails.  Amy is the sweetest, most down-to-earth person, in addition to being an utterly kick-ass editor and publisher.  And she takes pictures of hotel room amenities, just like everyone else does.  What's that?  Oh.

Anyway – the meal, in a private room at a nearby restaurant, was tremendous fun and also very interesting.  It was great to meet Joe, the Penguin sales rep for the area, and Diana, who co-ordinates hardback sales nationally.  There were representatives from the wonderful Rainy Day Books in Kansas City; Watermark Books in Wichita; The Bookworm in Omaha; Magers & Quinn in Minneapolis; Next Chapter Bookshop in Mequon; Bookcase in Wayzata; and Books & Company in Oconomowoc. As an additional bonus we were also lucky to have the delightful author Clare Vanderpool, whose novel, Moon Over Manifest, won this year's John Newbery Medal.  August company, indeed.

Amy introduced me, and I talked a bit about the genesis of the book.  There then followed a fascinating discussion about books, the book industry, and (most interestingly for me) what our guests thought made for the best author events.  There were some who thought that authors shouldn't read a word from their books – better simply to talk and give insight about the process and inspiration for the book in question.  It wasn't a unanimous opinion, it should be said, but it was an eye-opener for me.

Before I knew it, it was way past my bedtime and a wonderful evening had whizzed by.  Next post will relate the following day's events, at the show itself.

New Website Design – Your Thoughts Needed!

As we approach the run-in for publication of A GOOD AMERICAN, I thought it might be a good idea to redesign this site to make it a little more user-friendly (= help people to actually buy the book.)

To that end, I am presently running a design contest on the site 99 Designs.  The idea is that having written a design brief, people offer up designs on spec in the hope that they will be chosen (and receive the design fee.)  It's a pretty cool idea.

The contest has been going for a few days now and presently there are three leading contenders.  If you have a moment, please click on this link, have a look at the three different designs, and let me have your thoughts, either via that page or in the comments section here.  I like them all, and would really value your input.  I am hopeless at making decisions like these, as anyone who has seen me hum and haw endlessly over a restaurant menu will readily attest.

Thanks in advance for your help.  And here's that link again.

Blurbalicious

I hope you'll forgive a just little bit of trumpet-blowing.  Can I use the cover of the book as an excuse?

Since I put up this blog post about my lovely galleys a couple of days ago, several people have written to ask me what is written half way down the page, between my name and the cornet full of notes – the words are too small to read from the photograph.

It is the blurb of all blurbs, is what.

It's from Sara Gruen, superstar author of the gajillion-selling WATER FOR ELEPHANTS (now, as they say, a major motion picture) and more recently APE HOUSE.  Here is what the lovely Sara said (and yes, I am blushing somewhat as I type this):

"This lush, epic tale of one family's journey from immigrant to Good Americans had me alternately laughing and crying, but always riveted.  It's a rich, rare treat of a book, and Alex George is a first-rate talent."

Still. Pinching. Self.

(And thank you, Sara.)

Get Snappy, Get Happy

My recent trip to Maine has got me thinking a lot about lobsters.

You can't go for more than about two minutes up there without encountering a lobster somewhere – either on a roadside sign, a tea towel, a postcard, or – if you're lucky – in a restaurant.

I ate a lot of lobster while I was there. Once it came on a roll, but my preferred method is the old-fashioned way – wearing a silly plastic bib and attacking a freshly-boiled beast with menacing-looking tools with a pot of melted butter to dip the glistening flesh into. Many were happily dispatched this way – in roadside shacks, in actual restaurants, and, most memorably, amidst a multilingual cacophony of Italians, Spanish, Brits and Chileans who all found themselves sitting at the same table. That was an evening that won't be forgotten any time soon. Not by us, and probably not by the bemused Americans sitting around us, either.

But now for the sad bit. I was told last week that lobsters mate for life. I so wanted this to be true, but made the mistake (damn you, cursed internet) of checking my facts before starting this post. And I'm sorry to report that it's not true at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. Apparently male lobsters are actually rather randy, crustacean Casanovas. This news has saddened me more than it really should. Another illusion shattered. To compensate, here are the Smothers Brothers singing about doomed lobster love.

Anyway, all that has prompted me to re-post the following (slightly edited) lobster-related blog which I wrote some years ago and which, I have to confess, I have already re-posted once. Apologies to those loyal readers who have suffered through this before.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the epicurean delights of last week, now I am sorely tempted to give this another try.

***

LOBSTER PAD THAI

This lunatic quest began some time ago as I was reading an amusing piece by a fine writer named Steve Almond about eating lobster pad thai in Maine. As I read, I licked my lips and pictured myself serving up a similarly ravishing masterpiece to a rapturous reception. The fact that I had cooked neither (a) pad thai nor (b) lobster before did not strike me as much of a problem.

I could not get the thought of that lobster pad thai out of my head. It just sounded ridiculously delicious – perhaps that stands as testament to Almond's mouth-watering prose more than anything. The only time I could remember actually eating lobster was my first ever visit to Missouri, just after I was married, when we went to a restaurant at the Lake of the Ozarks and my wife ordered deep-fried battered lobster. (I know, I know. So many jokes, so little time.) I wasn't even quite sure if I liked lobster or not. That didn't matter. I knew I had to try this dish. I looked everywhere on the internet for a recipe, but no dice. I knew which book the recipe came from, because Almond had been good enough to name the book, but obviously there was no way I was ever going to fork out twenty bucks for a book for just one damn recipe. Such wanton profligacy was needless, and immoral, and just plain wrong.

Once the book arrived from amazon, I spent a couple of months contemplating the amounts of lobster required to feed even a modest number of people, debating all the while whether to re-mortgage the house. My wife asked whether I couldn't just use frozen lobster tail, or perhaps shrimp. These were good, sensible suggestions, and obviously entirely missing the point.

I dithered endlessly, until, as the global financial markets went into meltdown all around me, I decided to act. Heroically undertaking to rescue mid-Missouri's ailing retail economy single-handedly, I went into Schnucks and bought three live lobsters. I hopefully asked Walt, who was working behind the seafood counter that afternoon, whether two might not be enough, but he shook his head and told me I'd need at least three of the little fuckers. (Not his precise words, I should add. They're very polite in Schnucks.) I drove home fast, trying to outrun my guilt at the ridiculous amount I had paid for my salty, snapping booty in the back seat.

Back home, I explained to my son what was going to happen next, and with a morbid streak that I suspect not all seven year-olds possess, he watched silently as the water in the saucepan slowly reached boiling point. When I picked up the first lobster, it began to flail about, eyes bulging, arching its tail upwards in a furious cortortion. I felt like Jason (of Argonaut fame) fighting that fake scorpion, and quickly dropped the lobster back into its box. Hallam did not look impressed. Neither did the lobster. Suitably abashed, a minute later I grabbed the thing again and managed to put it into the water with a triumphant harrumph. We watched as it turned red. I turned and looked proudly at my son. He stared at the creature as it continued to twitch, and murmured, "I'm glad I'm not in there."

Once I had murdered all three of the little critters, I spent the next hour redecorating the walls of the kitchen with shrapnel from splintering lobster carcass and the rather unpleasant brown stuff that spewed out of the lobsters when I cracked them in two. This hideous effluent is called the tammale, but giving it a posh-sounding name doesn't make it look any less like shit. By the time I had finished with all three beasts I was left with enough lobster meat to fill, oh, a small matchbox.

The actual cooking of the pad thai was uneventful enough. I'd discovered a new Asian supermarket the previous week and had been led through it by a lady who gabbled away on the telephone in unintelligble dialect as I trailed her around the store, meekly holding up my basket as she threw items into it. I'd chopped and diced and measured and poured everything in advance, and the stir-frying was all over rather quickly in the end.

But was it any good? Well, it wasn't bad. It was quite pad thai-like, I suppose. Everyone made suitably appreciative noises as they slurped on their noodles. But all I could think of was how much I had spent on those tiny bits of lobster meat that flecked the bowl.

I know I'm supposed to extrapolate some sort of neat moral aphorism from all this. Nemesis follows hubris? Don't cook fresh seafood in Missouri? Both valid points. But I'm going with: sometimes you should listen to your wife. Next time – if there is a next time – I'm going to use shrimp.