Kevin Holtsberry Dot Com

Interesting article in the New York Times about authors whose “adult novels” books get picked up by YA imprints. The author, Margo Rabb, speaks from experience:

When my agent called to tell me that my novel, “Cures for Heartbreak,” had sold to a publisher, she said, “I have good news and bad news.” The good news: an editor at Random House had read it overnight and made an offer at 7:30 a.m. The bad news: the editor worked at Random House Children’s Books.

My agent recounted the story of my novel’s sale, its rejections and close calls, and its particularly close call with editors at two Random House adult imprints. Both had wanted to buy it until the editor in chief decided the novel would be “better served” by the young adult division.

My literary novel about death and grief, which I’d worked on for eight years, was a young adult book?

The article doesn’t shed much light on why this seems to be happening. My guess is that if something doesn’t fit clearly into a genre or mindset and includes younger characters it gets labeled YA. The good news is that this brings with it a lot freedom; YA books are some the most creative and interesting. But it also means you have to deal with the stereotypes and condescension:

For me, the thrill of my book’s having been sold outlasted my confusion over its classification. Then, as the publication date approached, I received a fellowship to the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. One morning in the dining room, another writer asked who was publishing my book; I told her that it was Random House, and that it was being published as young adult.

“Oh, God,” she said. “That’s such a shame.”

I couldn’t get her words out of my head. I spent a lot of time worrying about whether my book would be taken seriously. I noticed the averted gazes and unabashed disinterest of literary acquaintances whenever I mentioned my novel was young adult.

The article also seems to indicate that I am not your typical adult reader:

“Young people will find an adult book, but it doesn’t work the other way,” said A. M. Homes, whose first novel, “Jack,” was originally published as Y.A. (It was later released in paperback for adults.)

I read YA books but I am by no means an expert. I read mostly in what fantasy or speculative fiction and avoid teenage romance and other aspects of the genre.

Looks like retailers might be finding ways to market and sell books that can appeal to a wide audience:

Meg Rosoff, an American-born author who lives in London, said, “There isn’t an adult who’s going to trot into the children’s section to look for adult literature.” All three of Rosoff’s novels have been published in both adult and Y.A. editions, and her first novel, “How I Live Now,” was nominated for prizes in both categories. In Britain, she says, where dual Y.A. and adult editions are more common, there’s less of a stigma against young adult literature.

“They’re smarter over there — in this country we tend to pigeonhole things,” said James Patterson, whose Y.A. series “Maximum Ride” was originally shelved only in the Y.A. section of Barnes & Noble. After sales fell short of Patterson’s adult titles, the fourth book in the series was released in hardcover for adults, and the chain began selling the series only in the adult section. Sales have since increased, a company representative said.

Cart, of Booklist, proposes that stores create an “All Ages” section for crossover titles, which might also help attract older teenagers. Megan Tingley, the senior vice president and publisher of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, thinks this is a great idea. “We need to rethink how we’re merchandising books for teenagers,” she said.

I think this is a good idea. Why not promote books that can be read by younger readers and their parents? Seems like a win-win.

Meanwhile I guess I will have to keep slumming it in the YA aisles . . .

–> Viagra Fall by Mary Daheim

Publishers Weekly

Cozy buffs who’ve yet to encounter Daheim’s popular Pacific Northwest series will find this entertaining 24th installment (after 2007’s Scots on the Rocks) an easy entry point. Judith McMonigle Flynn, who operates a bed-and-breakfast in the Seattle neighborhood of Heraldsgate Hill, has recently remarried her ex-husband, Joe Flynn. Her complicated personal life becomes even more so after the arrival of Joe’s ex-wife, Vivian, with her trophy husband in tow. Vivian soon sends ripples through Heraldsgate Hill when she announces plans to build a huge condominium in the community. When the body of an unidentified man is found hanging from a tree behind Vivian’s house, Judith reluctantly resumes her familiar role as amateur sleuth. Longtime fans will smile at cousin Renie’s exasperation with the prevaricating Judith (”These lengthy preludes to your adventures drive me nuts”). Endearingly eccentric characters are a plus.

–>The Night of the Gun by David Carr

Kirkus Reviews

New York Times reporter Carr bluntly reveals his former life in hell, when he juggled two talents: smoking crack and filing news. It started out with innocent teenage pot smoking, typical stuff for a suburban Minneapolis kid in the 1980s. By the end of the decade, having cultivated a colossal cocaine habit, the author had deteriorated into a ghost of himself. He was in and out of jail cells and rehab; his legend grew in the streets; his reputation sank to no-hire status in local newsrooms. He got involved with “Anna,” a cute blonde drug dealer: “Six months after we had gotten together, her business was in disarray, I had lost my job, and then, oh yeah, she was pregnant.” Their twin daughters were born on April 15, 1988, two-and-a-half months premature, each weighing less than three pounds. “When Anna’s water broke,” Carr writes, “I had just handed her a crack pipe.” Soon he was using cocaine intravenously and fell into paranoia and depravity that made even his dealers shake their heads. With the help of family and friends, he did an about-face, putting the seven-month-old twins in foster care and throwing himself into recovery. When Anna continued using, he sued for and got permanent custody. He worked his way to the top of the masthead of the local alt-weekly newspaper, winning awards and providing a stable home for his daughters.

But as Carr reminds the reader, with every new height a recovering addict reaches, the bottom is just a short slip away. Perhaps in response to the Million Little Pieces scandal, or perhaps because he doesn’t trust his subjective and drug-warped memory, the author provides backup and other points of view for every phase of his life. His book is based ondozens of recently taped interviews with everyone from his parents to drug dealers, and it includes photocopies of arrest reports, clinical observations and even rejection letters from national editors. A brilliantly written, brutally honest memoir.

Please tell me why I should feel bad about this:

Ralph Stover has good credit and a steady job.

But he took out a risky interest-only first mortgage and a second mortgage to buy a new 1,900-square-foot condominium in 2003 with no money down. Now, the 52-year-old Columbus man is scared he could become another casualty in the ongoing housing meltdown.

He paid $170,900 for his three-bedroom, three-bathroom unit near Polaris, but an appraisal he had done in April because he was thinking about refinancing showed it was worth $160,000. Other units are selling for $150,000 or less, he said.

His first mortgage is going to reset to a higher interest rate early next year. That means his monthly payment will more than double and then float every six months based on national interest rates, he said. Locking into a fixed-rate mortgage would be even more expensive, costing him close to half his monthly income plus a hefty down payment and thousands of dollars in up-front points and fees.

He’s beginning to think foreclosure might be the best of his bad options.

So Ralph has a good job and good credit and decides to buy more house than he can afford and get himself way in over his head and I am supposed to feel sorry for him? Upset that he can get help or a bailout? Pah-leese. How about he pay the price for making a foolish choice? Is that too much to ask?

You don’t have to be financially sophisticated to know that two mortgages one of which is interest only is a huge risk. He had to know he was rolling the dice and now he acts like he is innocent. I bought a house I could afford and locked in a good fixed rate mortgage. I did the right thing. Ralph didn’t and he shouldn’t get any help from taxpayers.

Lev Grossman takes a look at How Fiction Works by James Wood and argues that the book is enjoyable but perhaps not in the way it was intended:

Books about how to read fiction are a thriving business. This summer also brings us Thomas C. Foster on How to Read Novels Like a Professor (Harper; 304 pages) and John Mullan on How Novels Work (Oxford; 346 pages), though Wood, as a book critic for the New Yorker, is the heavyweight of the field. These books fall into the curious netherworld of extra-academic literary theory. They are the last, depleted descendants of what used to be called aesthetics, the branch of philosophy that theorized the human response to works of art. For most intents and purposes, aesthetics collapsed in 1970 under the weight of Theodor Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory. What’s left is books like How Fiction Works–which is, oddly, a delight, but not for the reason it’s supposed to be.

The pleasure of the book lies in watching Wood read. For Wood, the history of the novel is itself like a novel, in which genius-heroes perform astounding feats of literary innovation. Proust finds a new way to render character in Swann’s Way (”Progress!” Wood shouts); Flaubert (”the bearish Norman, wrapped in his dressing gown”) writes prose with a precision that until then had been reserved for poetry, and in the process inadvertently invents realism as we know it; Tolstoy narrates the fading consciousness inside a freshly severed head. Wood’s enthusiasm is glorious. Reading alongside him is like going birding with somebody who has better binoculars than yours and is willing to share.

He then argues that theory, as it pertains to the novel, is a hopeless cause:

The point of How Fiction Works is supposed to be Wood’s theory of the novel. And yes, we dutifully make the rounds of narration, dialogue and so on, topics that inspire in even the most passionate reader a special, pure kind of boredom. But as Wood himself observes, “The novel is the great virtuoso of exceptionalism: it always wriggles out of the rules thrown around it.” The novel is corrosive to systematic thought–whatever is good about it is precisely that increment that resists theorization. The great pleasure of Wood’s book lies in the examples, not the points they prove, and the lessons lie in watching him read, not think. The novel exists only in practice, not in theory, in the moment when the brain hits the page–the moment when a dying servant’s bare heels meet beneath the sheets on his deathbed.

Read the whole, rather short, review and tell me what you think.  Do we need to know how fiction works?  Is theory ultimately of no use because fiction/novel “is corrosive to systematic thought”?  Or is Grossman missing something?

Richard Lewis has become one of those authors whose books I read as soon as they are released. Every since his first book, The Flame Tree, I have enjoyed reading his intelligent and unique take on the young reader genre. I have enjoyed interviewing him via both podcast and email. And I check in on his blog regularly.

So I was eagerly anticipating his latest release The Demon Queen and it didn’t disappoint. At this point I may not be the most unbiased observer, but I found Demon Queen to be full of interesting characters and a entertaining blend of action, suspense, and horror. It also weaves in an interesting perspective on our post 9/11 world.

Here is the basic plot from the publisher:

Jesse is a boy with a mysterious past. In and out of foster homes his whole life, he believes he was abandoned in Los Angeles as a baby. When he comes under the scrutiny of Homeland Security in an incident involving a mistaken identity, he starts learning some unsettling facts about himself.

Now he is living with the Mindells in a small Midwestern town, and for the first time he feels like he may have a real home — until Honor Clarke shows up. Ever since Honor and her mother moved back to town following the gruesome death of Honor’s father, strange things have been happening. Someone is murdering birds and painting odd symbols all over town, and Jesse feels as if he’s losing his mind. He starts to see a man no one else can see, he is having violent nightmares, and it all seems to be leading to one conclusion — he is here for only one reason: to fight the evil that is Rangda, the Demon Queen, and her loyal follower, Honor Clarke, no matter the consequences.

At one level DQ is a rather straightforward teen horror novel. Loner, but kindhearted, orphan boy finds himself in the middle of a dark plot and must fight evil to save himself and the community. It touches on the cruelty of adolescence and the awkwardness of relationships between the sexes at that age. You have the ugly class bullies and the loyal sidekick. You even have the trusted adult who turns out to be at the heart of the evil plot.

All of this Lewis handles well. Both Jesse and Honor are interesting and well drawn characters when seen from this angle. But what makes things more interesting, and gives it an added edge in my opinion, is that the international flavor Lewis brings to the plot - Indonesian mythology and characters, etc. - also connects to the war on terror and the changes in the world since 9/11.

Lewis touches on a number of potentially controversial subjects from Christian fundamentalism, small town parochialism, and the deeply flawed American adoption system to belief in the supernatural, the nature of evil, and incarceration and interrogation in the age of terror.

For Jesse these questions are very real because they directly impact his life. His precarious legal status and unique identity means he is constantly at risk of being thrown into the ugly side of all these questions. On the most basic level of being turned in, roughed up, and deported; and in the supernatural realm of facing the evil that has been unleashed alone and without allies.

What makes Lewis’s take more interesting is that he avoids the temptation to turn didactic and instead leaves the reader with questions instead of clear answers. Just when you think he is developing an anti-fundamentalist take the plot switches. When the legal system seems stretched to the breaking point in anti-terror enthusiasm (or fear) he shows the dedication and decency of those involved.

For Lewis, it seems, there are rarely clear cut good guys and bad guys, or systems, but instead always messy human beings with all the baggage and confusion that brings. And despite all the excitement and action that comes from a unique mythological creature threatening to take over the world, the real horror Lewis describes is being a young person alone in the world without a family; without a refuge from the chaos and danger. Whether that is a new junior high school, the foster family system or the legal system in an age of terror it really is a horror story.

This is not to say the less ideological/current event aspects aren’t exciting. The mythology Lewis brings gives the book a unique plot and style. Instead of witches and wizards, or traditional psychopaths, we get shamans and goddesses battling across time and space. All set in an Midwestern university town.

I hope the above has convinced you to check out Richard Lewis if you haven’t already. He really does bring a unique perspective and style to the YA genre. If, like me, you enjoy reading in this area - or if you are just looking for something different and challenging for your younger readers - Lewis is a enjoyable find. I highly recommend The Demon Queen to readers young and old.

–> Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit and the Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry by Matthew Randazzo V

Publishers Weekly

In June of 2007, the professional wrestling community was rocked by the suicide of wrestler Chris Benoit, after murdering his wife and seven-year-old son. In this wide-ranging expose, crime reporter Randazzo demonstrates that, among professionals driven to incredible levels of steroid, drug and alcohol abuse, Benoit was not unique. Benoit spent years in Canada and Japan enduring training that bordered on the medieval, eagerly employing steroids to achieve the industry’s standard physique. As his star rose, so did the injuries and the chemicals; Benoit’s signature move, a flying headbutt, was responsible for countless concussions. Culminating in a 2001 spinal injury that left him at risk of permanent paralysis, Benoit, like many other wrestlers, treated himself with copious doses of painkillers before returning to work for more punishment. Combined with a crumbling marriage, Benoit’s life became a perfect storm of mental and physical anguish; unfortunately, Randazzo’s broad biographical strokes (he saves details for pivotal matches) and wide focus on the industry’s evolution make Benoit little more than a minor character in his own story. Wrestling fans will savor the industry gossip, but those interested in the how and why of Benoit’s tragic murder-suicide will be disappointed.

–> Pharmakon by Dirk Wittenborn

Publishers Weekly

In this ambitious but flawed novel about drug makers and drug takers, Wittenborn (Fierce People) unfurls the cautionary story of Dr. Will Friedrich, a psychopharmacologist at Yale in 1951, who teams up with a female psychiatrist to test an experimental mood-enhancing drug extracted from a leaf used by New Guinea witch doctors. Will tests the new med on a suicidal freshman, Casper Gedsic, and Casper’s resulting homicidal outbreak will trouble Will for the rest of his life. Zach, the narrator and youngest Friedrich boy (conceived in the wake of Casper’s freakout), comes of age during the tail end of the ’60s, has a truncated brush with writerly success and cops a crippling habit. He and his three siblings end up disappointing Will as their lives run counter to his ambitions for them: daughters Fiona and Lucy forgo lucrative careers for more fulfilling lifestyles (Fiona becomes a painter, Lucy an aid worker), and Willy drops out of prelaw to study art. Unfortunately, the fates of the Friedrich children are of much less dramatic interest than that of their father, and as the novel shifts focus to their travails, this dysfunctional family narrative disappointingly peters out into irresolution.

–> Outsmart!: How to Do What Your Competitors Can’t

From the Publisher

Jim Champy revolutionized business with Reengineering the Corporation. Now, in Outsmart! he’s doing it again. This concise, fast-paced book shows how you can achieve breakthrough growth by consistently outsmarting your competition. Champy reveals the surprising, counterintuitive lessons learned by companies that have achieved super-high growth for at least three straight years. Drawing on the strategies of some of today’s best “high velocity” companies, he identifies eight powerful ways to compete in even the roughest marketplace. You’ll discover how to find distinctive market positions and sustainable advantages in products, services, delivery methods, and unexpected customers with unexpected needs.

Paul Simon, Suprise

Because you cannot walk with the holy,
If you’re just a halfway decent man.
I don’t pretend that I’m a mastermind
With a genius marketing plan.
I’m trying to tap into some wisdom,
Even a little drop will do.
I want to rid my heart of envy
And cleanse my soul of rage
Before I’m through.

- from Paul Simon, Wartime Prayers.

Are you ready for the exhausting general election? It has already started, unofficially of course, but perhaps this Jib Jab might cheer you up:

How much do you know about energy in America?