Matthew Westfall's Blog, page 4
September 15, 2012
Naval Guns Mounted on Manila-Dagupan Railway Car
A great photo of American military ingenuity at work. Here are naval guns mounted to the forward rail car on the Manila Dagupan Railway, taken on August 2, 1899. We stumbled over this photo at the US National Archives in Washington. More interesting is that the photo was taken by Signal Corpsman John D. Saulsbury, who, for a time, joined the Gillmore Party prisoners as a fellow captive. Saulsbury, a native of Darien, New York, enlisted on 16 January 1899 in Buffalo, New York.
September 1, 2012
The Devil’s Causeway now shipping!
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http://www.amazon.com/The-Devils-Causeway-Philippines-Expedition/dp/0762780290[image error]
Amazon now shipping The Devil’s Causeway!
Terrific news: Amazon is now shipping The Devil’s Causeway, and the Kindle version will be available next week. And we just broke into Amazon’s Best Seller List for Philippine history. Check it out!
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http://www.amazon.com/The-Devils-Causeway-Philippines-Expedition/dp/0762780290[image error]
August 30, 2012
The US Army Arrives at Baler
The US Army first arrived at Baler on February 28, 1900, led by Brigadier General Frederick Funston (third from right). Funston had been awarded the Medal of Honor just two weeks earlier for his earlier exploits in the Philippines, and would later play a key role in the capture of Filipino President Emilio Aguinaldo on March 23, 1901.
August 18, 2012
BookExpo America 2012 – Launching The Devil’s Causeway in New York
The Lyons Press Booth
A stack of galleys for The Devil’s Causeway. We gave out 2,300 advance reading copies at BEA.
Signing galleys.
Lots of fun meeting booksellers, agents and publishers.
Some interesting conversations with fans of military history.
Lyons Press editor Keith Wallman stops by to say hello.
Next door, The Breakfast Club’s Molly Ringwald signs her new book, When It Happens to You.
Singer Michael Bolton gears up for is signing.
My daughter asked for this, and vblog brother superstar John Green was only too kind to accommodate.
Project Runway’s Tim Gunn at his book signing for Tim Gunn’s Fashion Bible.
July 24, 2012
A Starred Review from Publishers Weekly!
When my editor’s email arrived a few weeks back, announcing we had our first pre-publication review for The Devil’s Causeway from the prestigious Publishers Weekly magazine, I was fairly excited. As insiders know, PW is the book industry bible for publishers, booksellers, librarians and literary agents, and their influential reviews can make or break a book. That their reviews are anonymous makes them even more honest and valuable, and considered by some even more desirable than, say, a nice write up in one of the book sections of a major news daily. But then came the kicker: Not only was The Devil’s Causeway selected by PW for a review — a distinction in and of itself — but the debut book had been bestowed a “star”! Who knew? PW had this to say:
The Devil’s Causeway: The True Story of America’s First Prisoners of War in the Philippines, and the Heroic Expedition Sent to Their Rescue
Matthew Westfall. Lyons, $26.95 (432p) ISBN 978-0-7627-8029-7
Westfall, a filmmaker with extensive experience in the Philippines, recreates in exacting detail the plight of American sailors captured by Filipino insurgents in April 1899. Westfall’s painstakingly researched book opens with the Navy men under the command of Lt. James C. Gillmore and how his incompetence led to their capture. Westfall then traces the slow and arduous march of the rescue expedition mounted by the U.S. Army. While the rescue was successfully executed in December, the army expedition, numbering over 200 men with their wounded and sick, still had to march 90 miles through dense jungle, mountains, and fast rivers without food, before reaching the coast where the Navy waited. Finally, Westfall discusses the fate of the survivors, the efforts to recover the bodies of the fallen, and the trials and eventual imprisonment for war crimes of the most brutal Filipino leaders. Westfall gives a thrilling and fast-paced adventure story that brilliantly illuminates an untold aspect of one of America’s first overseas wars, as well as the beginning of the complex relationship between America and the Philippines (Sept.)
My most excellent literary agent jumped right in, with a raft of kind words, on his blog.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure what all this meant, but a bit of quick math helped: Of the 6,300+ books published each week in the United States, Publishers Weekly selects about 140 for review. Of those selected, about 10 are given a “star”, across all genres – fiction (crime, mystery, romance, fantasy, horror, science fiction, young adult and graphic novels, among others) and nonfiction (biography/memoir, business, psychology, politics, humor, travel, true crime, sports, science, religion, pets, music, nature, technology and our favorite, history). That comes to maybe 500+ “starred” reviews each year, and for the history genre, perhaps about 20-22 reviews annually, making it a rather narrow, elite field.
And within that genre, even further culling by sub-genre. In 2012, for example, for military history, only six books were awarded the coveted PW star: Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, Sebastian Junger’s War, Ted Morgan’s Valley of Death, Lynne Olson’s Citizens of London, Nathaniel Philbrick’s The Last Stand and Richard Reeves’ Daring Young Men, Pretty great company, if I say so myself.
Thank you, PW!
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