Rick Simonson

All Shall Be Well ...
March 29, 2008

As was noted last post, the weather up here in the Pacific Northwest took a frigid turn these past few days. Decidedly so: the big winter coat and scarf, last seen/worn down in Louisvile for ABA's Winter Institute, had to be dug out. Yesterday (Friday) we in Seattle beheld the rare to heaven sight oif snow falling ... in late March.

Seeing everyone stare out the window, looking bedazzled and out of rhythm, Elliott Bay store general manager Tracy Taylor had the warped wit to put on some jazzy, more secular Christmas music Hear those sleigh bells? Jing-jing-jingling .... Weirdly, that seemed to help. Even weirder, it seemed to have an affect: suddenly the store was busier. People were coming up with stacks uncommon for this time of year (lots of them, for whatever reason, from Montana), stacks that included big art books. A few of us took a turn at giftwrapping. Ok. but what was this? Tracy even helped a man who, casting about for the kind of book he was looking for, actually used the term 'stocking stuffer.' (This is all true.)

Scary, if the subliminal works that well But please, not yet.

The imminent turning of the calendar page, meanwhile, shows that this last clinging-on of winter will soon yield to some inevitables. Some of those inevitables, in this line of work, mean the first signs of the fall season, and calendar landmarks, such as BEA - now almost exactly two months away.

The weather here - and the knowledge that this year's show is in Los Angeles - help render that as seeming sometime far off in the chronological distance.. So and not so: right now, I wouldn't be able to fathom what kinds of clothes would be packed and worn somewhere like that then, but I kind of can feel the approach of figuring out the aisles and offers, have flashback remembrances - oh, LA, the setup with the split halls and the elevated walkway between, right?.

Even more, this past week saw assignments. Forget BEA, there is work to put the eye to: the first speadsheet grids for Random and Harper author readings and signings 'landed' in many of our email boxes.

One other thing that might be said at this juncture, both with an eye ahead to the wondering of what will be found this year in LA - what new, yet unknown, in time to be intriguing, books - is how vivid much of last year's BEA still is, now ten months on.One could elaborate on this or that, but for here to say that one of those moments of the show came in poking around the big Random House compound.

This happens almost every year - sometimes it's something you don't see but know to ask for, some less obvious title from the fall list. Sometimes it's the general question: having seen and given scrutiny to the fall, what's next? 

I still remember the end of May day it was (the day without air conditiong) and there was Knopf Pantheon's James Kimball, looking like he was itching for some kind of action, a rare idle-seeming moment.. The usual catching-up banter ensued. 

As if to anticipate the borderline obnoxioous ('entitled' mode) query - have anything special for us? - James took the lead. Hey, have I got something for you. Back  into the booth's cluttered closet area he went. For all one could know they have hundreds of copies of what he's after stashed back there, but James is one with a knack for coming back out and carrying on as if he has dug out the one of the rarer objects known to humankind - a few precious copies brought over just for you ... and you (your colleague who's from another store, also standing there).

The book James laid upon the receiving hands with gusto that long-ago day of last year, I still remember, as he went on, describing a hard to describe first novel that Pantheon would be doing way off in January (it seemed so way off ... Januiary, but still ...), that's set mostly in Europe,.with a man somewhat along in years whose great enthusiasm is in medieval re-enacting ... and yet, is also missing his son. All of that, and more, James talked about. I remember wondering if there was a misprint problem with the title on the compact advance copy. No, All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well is the right title, and it is a rich, and rightful book of quests and questions. Released in late January, the book has been doing nicely in the quiet way most debut novels hope to - getting noticed, seeing some good reviews, definitely in the current where it's still being read in bookstores by staff members prone to handselling.

The roundabout reason for all of this here and now is that this weekend (Saturday for us) at our place, and at others on the circuit coming and going about now, two months after its publication, Tod Wodicka, author of the said All Shall Be Well ... is paying a visit, over from his home in Berlin. I'm not sure if coming around two months after publication was Pantheon's plan, or is owed to Tod Wodicka's schedule, but it's a smart thing, as it lets inital response happen, then can build from there.

Our former Elliott Bay colleague, Paul Constant, now doing the book beat at The Stranger (www.thestranger.com), gave it the featured shout-out in this week's issue, calling it a "near-perfect debut, written with a big heart and the rare ability to magically sidestep cliche." That notice is nice, especially for a publication with the reader demographics it has, for a book and author like this.

All Shall Be Well and its pleasures, we now begin to see ... and soon can wonder, what this year's on-in-time ones shall be.

Posted by Rick Simonson on March 29, 2008 | Comments (0)