The Elegant Variation

L.A. EVENT: MARK SARVAS & DAMION SEARLS

If you're in the Los Angeles area, I hope you will consider coming out Saturday night for my only appearance in support of the paperback edition of Harry, Revised.  I will be sharing the stage with Damion Searls, a talented author and translator whose Dalkey collection,What We Were Doing and Where We Were Going, is witty and inventive, so even if you're heard my schtick before, you still have a reason to come by.

The appearance will be held at Book Soup (details after the jump), and I would love for my one L.A. area appearance to be a smash and to see as many friendly faces as possible.  Book Soup is centrally located, there's parking in the rear and it's not a school night, so please do stop by and say hi - there will probably even be drinking and such afterwards.  The details are after the jump.  Hope you see you!

I GET AROUND

My essay on the foolishness of writers who carp about the Kindle can now be found at the Huffington Post ...

At a panel at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, I watched with bewilderment as a novelist I admire declared, without apparent irony, that "The Kindle is evil." It should have been easy to ignore so foolish a statement, but this author was scarcely alone in expressing antipathy for Amazon's popular electronic book. A table in the Green Room, with a slightly forbidding "Reserved for Amazon Kindle" sign, sat unoccupied, and was the object of much free-floating scorn and fear.

... and Fictionaut, a terrific literary community online, subjects me to the Fictionaut Five.  My answers can be found here.

If you weren’t a writer, how would you spend your time?

I’d love to be a chessplayer. Or a professional cyclist. Or a busboy at the French Laundry.

LITERATURE'S LOSERS

In honor of my protagonist Harry Rent, I've contributed a list of "Literature's Losers" to Bookforum's revamped website.  It begins thus:

Long before Amazon.com reviewers tyrannically demanded sympathetic and likable protagonists, literature was reliably populated by leading men of a less bland stripe. It’s hard for me to understand why someone would want to spend their reading hours in the company of the virtuous, the accomplished, and the capable, when failure is so much more interesting—and, sadly, altogether more common. Today, we call them antiheroes (it’s more polite), but to me, they will always be literature’s losers—tormented, feckless, sometimes lovable, sometimes not, but almost always heartbreaking.

To find out whom I selected, pop on over and have a look ...

HARRY RENT'S IPOD

How do you know you've really arrived?

When Largehearted Boy runs your playlist in Book Notes.  Here's how it starts:

The protagonists of first novels are commonly assumed to be stand-ins for their authors. And for good reason – they commonly are. However, in the case of my character, Harry Rent, this is most emphatically not the case. His unhappy marriage ends in the death of his wife. My marriage is happy, my wife thankfully breathing as I type this. Harry is digressive and indecisive. I’m, well, not. But, to be fair, we do share a few things – we’ve both trained with a spin instructor with a mystical presence and skin-tight shorts, though I did not fall off my bike in my first class. Although I am not one of those writers who must create a character’s entire biography before writing about him or her, another thing I suspect we share – had I thought to sit down and sketch out the contents of Harry’s iPod – is the wish that our musical taste was cooler than it is. Harry is riddled with anxiety about status, and although we’re both too old now to care whether we’re one of the cool kids, we haven’t yet fully made our peace with the fact of our occasionally pedestrian musical tastes. So with that tremendous caveat aside, here’s what my imaginary notes might have said about Harry’s imaginary iPod ... which would probably share a good deal with my own. Alphabetically:

TEV GIVEAWAY: HARRY, REVISED (in paperback)

On Wednesday, almost exactly a year after it first hit stores, Harry, Revised was released in paperback.  For those of you who didn't give it a try in hardcover, perhaps the $15 paperback price will entice you this time around.  (And via the likes of Amazon, it's as little as ten bucks.)

The paperback edition also sports a Reading Group Guide - discussion questions and a Q&A - but there's a deluxe version of the Reading Group Guide available for download from my website, kind of a director's cut, which includes all this:

* Synopsis
* Critical Praise
* Discussion Questions
* Author Biography
* Chapter One Excerpt
* Author Interview
* BONUS - The Original Ending
* BONUS - List of Alternate Titles
* BONUS - The Original One Page Outline

You can find the guide here - it's way down the left column, you have to scroll down a bit to reach it.  But before anyone buys a copy, I am going to give away three signed copies from my own personal stash.

Everyone knows the rules by now but here we go once more:  Drop me an email, subject line "WILD ABOUT HARRY" and please include your full mailing address.  I will accept all entries until 5 p.m. PST on Sunday, May 3, at which time the Random Number Generator will anoint three of you and the rest of you, well, go support your local independent bookstore (and favorite blogger).  Until then ...

HARRY, RIVISTO

Is it me, or do the international covers for Harry, Revised just keep getting better and better?

 

I went into a real swoon when I saw this gorgeous cover from Adelphi, the venerable Italian publishing firm.  I know I seem to say this with each new cover, but I think this one could be my favorite yet.

By the way, the paperback of Harry, Revised came out yesterday, so be sure to pop back here tomorrow when I will give away some signed copies ...

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO

A brief essay about my long relationship with The Count of Monte Cristo - and its role in the genesis of the newly-in-paperback Harry, Revised - can be found today at Chekhov's Mistress.

After that, I put The Count of Monte Cristo away but he’s always loomed large in my personal mythology. Yes, it’s true that Dumas isn’t much for psychological realism.  But one of the most elegant, least commented upon aspects of The Count of Monte Cristo is how Dantès essentially lets his foes undo themselves – he merely lays temptation in their way, and their natures, deformed by greed, by lust, by ambition, lead them headlong into ruin. Years later, when I taught writing to a group of at-risk boys, I substituted one of the required readings with a section from The Count.  To my surprise, when I returned the following week, I learned the boys had sought out the book from their library, and as we discussed it, it became clear this dimension was not lost on them.

HARRY COVERS ROUNDUP

My shocking upset in the Tournament of Books got me thinking that it's been a while since I posted about the international life of Harry, Revised.  I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the new international covers, some of which I'm quite mad for. 

Actually, the first cover is the US paperback cover (coming April 28) which, as you can see, very closely follows the original UK cover:

 

I've always liked the drawing of the figure, there's something just a little jaunty about it that appeals to me.  And there's a weird pathos about the short tie that kinda kills me.

The book was released last month in Norway by Font with the simple title Harry, and I'm seriously wild about this cover.  I love Molly's sauciness and the retro feel of the whole thing:

 

Amusingly, the blurb excerpted on the cover is New York Magazine's "Buy It" commandment.

Next up is the Greek cover.  As the US paperback based itself on the original UK cover, this one uses the Australian artwork but I love trying to make out the Greek alphabet.  That said, I won't even hazard a guess at how the title has been tranlsated but my Greek readers should feel free to assist:

 

Speaking of the UK cover, the UK edition is actually getting a redesign for a second, mass-market life.  According to my UK editor, the earlier edition is aimed a bit more toward critical attention, whereas the second version has more commercial conisderations.  Here's the cover, in all its considerable razzamatazz:

 

Last up, we have the German edition of Harry, which is the first one to focus on the Monte Cristo sandwich that sets much of the action in motion.  The title, Harry die Zweite, means "Harry the Second":

  

Finally, today's mail also brought me some copies of the German audiobook. I don't speak German, so it was interesting to listen to for about three minutes, but MOTEV, a former professor of German literature, is fluent, so a copy is headed her way:

So that's where  we stand, everyone's up to date.  I'll probably share a few more updates as Harry, Revised moves into a second life in paperback, and I'll share anything I learn along the way about this cryptic business of selling books.  More soon.

SPEECHLESS, REVISED

Evidently, our talent for prognostication is nonexistent.

LP:$

For many years before I began this blog, my standard holiday presents to all were books.  I would march into Book Soup or Skylight Books and fill several large bags with gifts.

I had to abandon this practice when I launched the blog, because people were constantly wondering if I'd merely given them repurposed review copies.  (Which I rarely did, because anything good enough to give was usually something I would want to keep.)

But in these dire economic times, it's essential to support both the publishing industry and independent booksellers.  So this year I returned to my old practice, and I did my holiday shopping at Village Books in Pacific Palisades.  Did I pay full price for all my books?  I did.  Did they have everything on hand I hoped to find?  They did not.  So I chose something else.

If you're a reader of this blog, I probably don't need to sell you on the idea of supporting publishers and bookstores, but sometimes the gap between idea and execution is larger than it should be.  So I am asking you all, in a time when publishers are shedding jobs and freezing acquisitions, and already embattled booksellers might not survive the downturn, to convert whatever is on your holiday gift list to books.  Books bought from independents.  Call it your own publising stimulus plan.

Look, you're going to spend, what, thirty bucks, maybe, on something that probably won't be around next year.  Whereas for less than that, you can buy a book that - if you are lucky - will live on its recipient's shelf for years to come.  I am hard-pressed to think of any other gift with so high a Lasting Pleasure to Cost Ratio.  (What I call the LP:$).

So if you get a book from me this year - and you know who you are - it was bought for full retail at a local independent. 

Speaking of Village Books, Tom Hanks will be on hand on December 17 to help the ailing store by signing anything - yes, anything - you buy there. 

Finally, as a way of saying thank you to all of you who supported Harry, Revised this year, if you have a copy but couldn't get to a signing, I've been given these handy autograph stickers which can be inserted into the book.  Just a drop me an e-mail with your address, and I'll make sure you get one.  And if you'd like to give a signed copy of Harry, Revised to that special someone on your holiday list, let me know and I'll send you a sticker for your gift copy as well.

End of Public Service Announcement.  A cornucopia of backlogged links await for tomorrow.