Rick Simonson

An Other (Press) Evening
June 26, 2008

In my experience over the years, it's generally been the larger New York houses that stage the pre-publication road shows that periodically wend through town. (Seattle, with a number of independent stores, but also with Amazon and Costco, depending on the pitched author, gets a good share of these.) 

An author of a forthcoming book, at the very least, materializes, sometimes escorted by a publicist or editor from New York. The house's local rep is usually on hand. Galleys or manuscripts had been sent out, so some of the invited have had perusing possible, if not the full book read.

An evening earlier this week hosted at Seattle's lovely Cafe Campagne - tucked romantically in an alleyway in the heart of the Pike Place Market - was a little different in that the hosting publisher was relatively young, and decidedly independent Other Press. The one exception to the 'larger' house model of these that comes to mind are when Morgan Entrekin and others from Grove Atlantic come to town and throw down an evening. As this particular evening went along, the spirit of the Grove nights was invoked, albeit on a smaller scale.

There was larger publisher aiding and abetting for this night - Other Press is a Random House distribution client (the 'green' side for those keeping tabs) - and it was Random House people presumably helping doing the orchestrating in the various cities Other Press publisher Judith Feher Gurewich and author Michael Greenberg are going to. Random House regional sales manager Katie Mehan essentially played the role of co-host with Judith - coordinating the invited, facilitating introductions, working with the restaurant people, making sure those who needed to step out for a smoke didn't get lost, etc.

An assortment of bookstore and book press people were on hand. Central to the evening was Michael Greenberg, whose memoir, Hurry Down Sunshine, is forthcoming in September, and for which Other Press is doing promotion such as I haven't noticed before. Not only this round of dinners, but there was BEA presence, will be touring when the book is out, etc.

A New York-based columnist for the Times Literary Supplement out of London, Michael Greenberg with this memoir is seeing his first published book. The memoir, in quick-descriptive mode, is the story of the summer his teenage daughter has a psychotic (bipolar, it's ultimately diagnosed) breakdown. It subtly and strongly tells many other stories of Michael Greenberg's along the way, all feeding the core of the story of his daughter - of a troubled brother, his parents' marriage, his own two marriages, an older son, other hospital patients, families, and mental health professionals. New York City, in the throes of a hot summer, is pretty palpable, too. Atmospheres of various kinds, inner and outer, have strong presence.

It was interesting to talk of - and of the routes to getting this written that were undertaken. I somehow thought it unlikely this was the first book he'd attempted to get published - I was right, there was, at the least, a novel announced once upon a time for Morrow - just as Morrow was acquired by Hearst, and a number of titles cancelled. (A few of us there nodded, we remember that ... before Morrow was then acquired by Harper and News Corp.)

The part of the evening that put me in mind of Morgan Entrekin - or Judy Hottensen, Eric Price, or Deb Seager - anyone holding the floor and holding forth for Grove - was when Judith Gurewrich got up, with the evening at the dessert phase, and graciously spoke of the evening's purpose and pleasures, and then availed herself of the opportunity to do a run-through of other Other Press books. This she did, showing off to good advantage the admirable range and ambition of Other Press' list: Bulgarian novelist Angel Wagenstein's new novel, Isaac's Torah; Phillip Lopate - most known as an essayist - with a pair of novellas, Two Marriages; Chile-born writer Elizabeth Subercaseaux's novel, A Week in October; rockslinga.blogspot.com blogger Randa Jarrar's fiction debut, A Map of Home; and Mietek Pemper's nonfiction work, The Road to Rescue: The Untold Story of Schindler's List, were among those enticingly described. Copies of these, and more, were provided in handsome blue tote bags. (Some of us had a heavy-laden bus ride home ...)

Very much part and parcel of her talk, underlying it and everything else, was unbated passion for books and for publishing good ones - as Ms. Gurewich seems intent on doing. How she went from Lacanian therapist to book publisher is not the most common of approaches to getting where she is now. It is, in fact, distinctly 'Other.'   

Posted by Rick Simonson on June 26, 2008 | Comments (0)