21st Century Literature discussion
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Chouette
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Chouette by Claire Oshetsky
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Thanks, lark, I entered the giveaway - fingers crossed! Aren't we lucky to have access to so many incredible minds here? I learn something here every day.
Thanks Marc! I wish my mom and dad were alive still. They'd be my biggest fans. But being 62 has some advantages. As Jan Morris wrote in her last, posthumously published book: “One of the prizes of old age is its release from competition.” Margaret, without a doubt I never would have written this novel if I hadn't been hanging out here on goodreads for the past dozen years or so, talking to other avid readers about contemporary fiction. I probably wouldn't have known about any of the contemporary authors I mention above, and their writing influenced this book a lot.
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Very cool. It must be so exciting to see your own book in print!
Stacia wrote: "Very cool. It must be so exciting to see your own book in print!"i honestly think the word for it is: 'confusing'
Do you have a direct link to sign up for the giveaway? wasn't able to find it.
Hi everyone. Ecco's Goodreads Giveaway of Chouette ends in 13 hours. Here is the link:https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...
My publisher has made it a fairly massive giveaway--100 paper ARCs to give away--so the odds are better than usual for giveaways. Thank you everyone, and thank you mods, for providing this promotions folder where I can post any news about the writerly side of my 21st Century Lit experience, without feeling extremely spammy!
In other news, my UK publisher, Virago, has just put Chouette up on NetGalley-UK!Here is the link:
https://www.netgalley.co.uk/catalog/b...
If you want to read the e-ARC (or Ecco's e-ARC, for the US market) then let me know--both of my publicists have told me I can request your pre-approval on NetGalley or an electronic copy sent to you.
Thank you!
In other-other news, I've been wanting to say this somewhere and now that I've re-upped the thread I might as well do it...It's disorienting to be a member of this community and also to have written a novel thats getting published by a big-5 publisher. I'm trying to be cool about it but I'm actually stupidly excited because I'm 62 and somehow, even though I've written exactly what I wanted to write, someone wanted to publish it.
BUT: thankfully I'm excited in a way where I'm excited by the harsh reviews, too--it's just so damn exciting that people have opinions about my book, and disagree about what it's about, and that my book makes them mad sometimes--
SO: if you review it critically, please don't imagine that I'm making a wax effigy of you to burn over an open fire. I am reading the reviews, but it feels like I'm reading them as a reader, and not an author, and I'll be interested in your take no matter what.
That's what I've been wanting to say. Oddly it's easier to say it over here (where you have a nice welcoming promotions folder for writers to post their stuff) rather than saying it over in the group I mod, where we have no such folder, and where it feels a little overpowering to say anything at all about this book, since I'm a mod.
ok...thank you!
OMG - I had no idea that's who you are! Should have guessed as I'm always intrigued by your reading list. I read a NetGalley ARC several months ago, love it, reviewed it and have recommended it to friends. Best wishes and enjoy the upcoming acclaim.
Hi Maggie, I hope you’d feel as easy about finding out I wrote it if you’d written a critical review. And I hope it’s not too weird to say that as a reader I’m in alignment with your idea that this book is one of many in a particular sub genre. The Fifth Child is a direct influence because of the way that novel’s mother is on her child’s side—mother and child aren’t antagonists. So many people including my publicist have said/written this book isn’t like anything they’ve read before, where I can think of dozens of books that are like it, and then I realize these are all books I found out about in this GR group and a handful of others. We are a little sub genre of adventuresome readers 😀
I'm so excited for you lark! I can't wait to pick it up from my local bookstore, or at least request they order it!
Bretnie wrote: "I'm so excited for you lark! I can't wait to pick it up from my local bookstore, or at least request they order it!"Thanks Bretnie! Just let me know if you want an e-ARC. The story is not going to change from the ARC as far as I know. I can't believe it's still not getting published until November--I finished it November 2019! (Finished it for the first time, anyway. After that it went through some serious editing, first with my agent and then with my publishers...all for the best, it was wonderful)
Thanks for the offer lark, I get so much from the library these days that I kind of want to support my local bookstore AND my amazing author friend at the same time. :)
lark wrote: "In other-other news, I've been wanting to say this somewhere and now that I've re-upped the thread I might as well do it...It's disorienting to be a member of this community and also to have writ..."
Lark, I'm just so very excited for you, and I also can fully relate to that sense of wonderment that there remain new ways for you to make your mark at y(our) age. I like the idea of your novel being marketed as a gift, which is how I choose to interpret the Nov release date : )
Lark, I was considering recommending your new book to my library, but wanted to ask your thoughts first. Some like the exposure but others don't want their profits eroded. Would you please advise?
Sam wrote: "Lark, I was considering recommending your new book to my library, but wanted to ask your thoughts first. Some like the exposure but others don't want their profits eroded. Would you please advise?"Sam, thanks so much for thinking of this! Of course I'd love for Chouette to be in your library!
It seems most writers don't ever get royalties--just the advance. That makes me fairly agnostic about where/how the book gets sold. There is so much overhead on the publisher's side that, even if a book does relatively well, an author might not see much. Each book's incoming revenues are first allocated to cover a percentage of the publisher's overall fixed costs before any revenue is applied to reducing the author's advance, and only after the advance is covered does an author get royalties. My understanding is that this is why a book can be 'successful' even if it doesn't 'earn back its advance,' because it has indeed earned the advance back, in a way, if it covers more of the publisher's expenses than it has cost the publisher to produce.
I'm happy to be contradicted about this, though!
Wow, that's super interesting lark!Every once in a while I daydream about shifting careers to something in the book-related industry, but then I realize it would probably be too close to the sausage making...
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Vesna wrote: "Congratulations, lark! I've already recommended it to the NYPL & Brooklyn public library."That's great, Vesna! Thank you. I like thinking about this book being on a shelf in the NYPL one day, somewhere between "Orwell" and "Ozeki"...
Sam wrote: "My rec is going to Brooklyn too."Thank you Sam! They're going to think this is a title much in demand!
What do you know, there is another giveaway going on for Chouette:https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/en...
I’m not sure but it looks like this is a giveaway for the actual book and not the ARC.
Hi everyone. An author podcast with Claire Oshetsky talking about Chouette dropped today. Here is a link:https://www.virago.co.uk/virago-news/...
I can't remember what I said for the most part--I was very nervous--but I did talk a bit about our recent read of Real Life.
I am loving this but taking my time with finishing after reading the first 30%. I hope this doesn't sound awkward fotr Lark, but I am looking forward to a future discussion of the novel. There is so much to love and discuss about this book. I got the audio as well to do my listen and read along approach and am enjoying that with further thoughts to come when finished. Cheers, Lark! Your book is innovative and interesting so far. In case you have not seen your book made Book Marks list of Best reviews of the week. https://bookmarks.reviews/the-best-re...
I would love to see this on the Women's Prize longlist. I hope it was submitted.
Mod
- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/bo...
- https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
- https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-...
- https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/cho...
- https://inews.co.uk/culture/books/cho...
- https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/book...
- https://www.buzzmag.co.uk/chouette-cl...
- https://spinemagazine.co/articles/eli...
- https://lithub.com/not-everybody-love...
I thought it was great! well done
Fantastic to get a review in the NY Times, lark! I have ordered the US version from Blackwells via Alibris.
thanks everyone! Sam, I don't feel awkward. I'm always going to think myself more as a 'reader' than a 'writer' and it's been fun to share this experience with my friends here on goodreads.
This is definitely my big week! The book was published in the US on Tuesday and there was a flurry of reviews and mentions--thanks, Marc, for listing them above. Next week there will be another pile of newly published books being reviewed. It's a very crowded fall literary season (as I'm sure we've all noticed), and I was lucky to get the reviews I did, and I'm not likely to get more after this. The NY Times will eventually publish the review in their print edition--that hasn't happened yet--but that's about it.
Marc wrote: "The press and review links have been delightfully piling up...";o)
I just saw a link to this other one on bookmarks, one that I like a lot because it's sort of sassy
https://www.bookpage.com/reviews/chou...
Wow, Lark! Congrats! I’ve received my copy and plan to read it next week. After all the great reviews, I’m excited to dig in.
Tracy wrote: "Wow, Lark! Congrats! I’ve received my copy and plan to read it next week. After all the great reviews, I’m excited to dig in."Thanks Tracy. I'm intrigued by the reception so far. Everyone seems to agree it's a weird book, and opinions part ways wildly from there.
Mod
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
I've posted earlier and elsewhere but here is the news again that I'll be doing a zoom event along with author Rachel Yoder tomorrow night at 6 pm Pacific Time (November 30, that is), hosted by Bookshop Santa Cruz. We'll be talking about all things metamorphical and maternal. Should be fun.Here is the link to register for the event:
https://www.bookshopsantacruz.com/cla...
Free! Thank you everyone!
21st Century Literature
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I think the novel will work for people who liked the experience of reading The Vegetarian, Die, My Love, and Fever Dream, although my book is more lighthearted than any of these--so add a touch of Nothing to See Here's optimism to all of the above, maybe.
There are also bits of inspiration taken from The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing and On Aggression by Konrad Lorenz.
I learned most of what I know about writing here on Goodreads, from talking books with all of you over the years, and from reading your thoughtful reviews. So also I want to say thank you for the generous and inspirational discussions I've enjoyed here about contemporary literature and how it works.