Rick Simonson

Cake, After All
April 11, 2008

Sloane Crosley must be living one of the more confounding existences in the world of books these days, not that she'd complain. She is presently making the book tour rounds as the author of I Was Told There'd Be Cake (Riverhead), a paperback original collection of essays and pieces that's been receiving strong reviews, word-of-mouth. Many of the pieces had originally appeared in places readers would find them - The New York Times, Village Voice, Salon.com, even Playboy (so I hear), where they'd been noticed, online versions sent around variously. The book's been selling, too, having a place on some of the lists.

Last night she concluded a two-day Seattle visit that had included reading at Third Place Books the night before. Both evenings were well-attended.

Everything so far could be said about any number of possible authors. But Sloane Crosley doesn't walk into bookstore doors like any other author. For her living (until royalties kick in), her dayjob, one of the things she does is send authors through bookstore doors as a publicist (a most excellent one) at Vintage Books.

That it is different with her from other authors was apparent even with arrival. Whereas most touring authors come with publisher-hired media escorts, Sloane sauntered in accompanied by the University Bookstore's Stesha Brandon (bearing a box that suspiciously appeared to contain some form of cake) and a woman (sorry, her name eludes me) who moved out to Seattle from the Harvard Bookstore less than a year ago (she had done author reading work there, moved out, couldn't find the right bookstore 'fit' anywhere, and has moved on to work for a nearby architecture firm ... but she clearly isn't too far away).

Sloane is not the first person working in publishing to write a book and then be out on tour. But it's usually been editors and publishers who've done this - John Glusman, Amy Scheibe, and Marty Asher being among them, even David Davidar and Roberto Calasso from outside the U.S. While it's interesting, informative, and thoroughly enjoyable to talk shop with them, you can sense that there is some remove from the nitty-gritty of their publishing work and this business of being a touring author. With a publicist such as Sloane, there is none of that.

As it was, talking shop with her, she seemed more immersed in it than ever, as she now seemed almost hyper-aware of what was going on with other Riverheard authors (oh, Nathaniel Rich is coming?), to say nothing of those she tends at Vintage. Talking this over, she said some had assumed she no longer worked at Vintage. No, no, this is 'vacation' time, and she'll soon be back at it. Meanwhile, seeing the foamcore poster next to the Nathaniel Rich one, she pointed out that she's the one working on Nathan Englander, who is here next week for the paperback of The Ministry of Special Cases. No doubt our next conversation will be followup, how that went. And who will be next.

One can also hope that there will also soon be a 'next' book by Sloane herself. This one offers surprises and pleasures on a few levels.

A last thing on this: I suspect this tour is compensating for the cake 'missing,' as in the book's title. Here, there was Stesha  Brandon (she was a baker before she was a working book-person, but still keeps her hand in the former, as a number of bookfolk can attest) and our own array of cupcakes - cake, for all, after all.

Posted by Rick Simonson on April 11, 2008 | Comments (0)