Make or Break Out

Each year, a few titles from small, mid-sized and university presses generate enough buzz to compete against books from larger publishers. Below is a selection of this season's likely contenders.

War Against the Weak: America's Campaign to Create a Super Race by Edwin Black (Four Walls Eight Windows, May) $26
The first large-scale history of eugenics reveals that mainstream organizations like the Carnegie Institute funded such a campaign in the early 1900s, and that 60,000 Americans termed "undesirable" were sterilized on the basis of pseudoscientific findings.
Potential breakout factor: Written by the author of the New York Times bestseller IBM and the Holocaust (Crown, 2001), this book has a first printing of 75,000 copies—a record for its publisher.

Wild Card Quilt: Taking a Chance on Home by Janisse Ray (Milkweed, May) $22
This sequel to Ray's memoir, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (Milkweed, 1999), recounts her return to her small Southern town at the age of 35, nearly two decades after she left "for good."
Potential breakout factor: Ecology of a Cracker Childhood sold more than 50,000 copies and was selected by the Georgia Center for the Book as the one book every person in the state should read. Marketing for Wild Card Quilt will build on that success with a 20-city tour, a national print campaign and radio interviews.

Hunting in Harlem by Mat Johnson (Bloomsbury, May) $23.95
The social tensions surrounding Harlem's gentrification explode in a string of murders in this suspense novel. "Think James Baldwin channeled through T. Coraghessan Boyle," said PW's review last month.
Potential breakout factor: This novel was a favorite at sales conference—so much so that reps requested that the first printing increase from 25,000 to 30,000 copies. With a blurb from Walter Mosley, it should find fans in both the mystery and African-American markets.

Liverpool Fantasy by Larry Kirwan (Avalon/Thunder's Mouth, May), $14.95 (paper)
This novel asks what would have happened if the Beatles had broken up in 1962 rather than 1970, then answers amusingly with a 1987 scenario in which Paul McCartney has transformed himself into a Vegas entertainer, George Harrison is a Jesuit priest and John Lennon is a bitter, unemployed alcoholic.
Potential breakout factor: Kirwan is leader of the popular Irish-American band Black 47. His clever premise is bound to appeal to music aficionados and baby boomers.

Eating Apes by Dale Peterson, with afterword and photographs by Karl Ammann (University of California, May) $24.95
This exposé warns of the imminent extinction of the African great apes—chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas—who are humans' closest relatives, arguing that this threat has been ignored by American conservation media.
Potential breakout factor: Store buyers have been responding strongly to this emotional issue—and the book's disturbing photographs. The press is working with the Great Apes Project to support sales.

Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging Political War Against Christianity by David Limbaugh (Regnery, August), $27.95
The subtitle says it all: Limbaugh backs up his claim that Christianity is under attack with such examples as the ACLU pressuring a Georgia school board to delete the word "Christmas" from a school calendar.
Potential breakout factor: A lawyer and syndicated columnist, Rush Limbaugh's brother has a name that is highly recognizable in conservative circles. A $50,000 marketing and publicity budget should push this title far.