Novels in search of authors

The arrival of the movie "The Other Boleyn Girl" in theaters today (Kenneth Turan reviewed it for the Times) reminded me of something Philippa Gregory, author of the novel, said about the source of the idea for the book when she was touring through Southern California about a year ago.

As she was researching another novel, she came across the name of a ship, named for Mary Boleyn, and was startled. Another Boleyn? What happened to her? "Imagine if I had entrusted this work to a researcher," she said. "Imagine what I might have lost!"

Just imagine. It’s true what some authors say: Novels find them, not the other way around.

It was the same for Nicholas Delbanco, whom I talked to this week during an L.A. visit. His next novel, coming in May from Dalkey Archive, is about Count Rumford.

Never heard of him? He was an inventor and visionary of the same level--and the same time--as Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. But the reason few know him in America though they enjoy the results of his ideas (such as the drip coffeepot and many other domestic conveniences), Delbanco explained, is because the former Benjamin Thompson, a native of Massachusetts, sided with the British in the Revolution. Rumford fled America to Europe where his inventions and theories were celebrated.

Delbanco wouldn’t have known him either if he hadn’t stumbled across his work back in 1969. He purchased an upstate New York house with a fireplace that smoked miserably and provided little heat. Then, someone saw the fireplace and gasped, "You have a Rumford fireplace!"

"A what?" Delbanco said. He cared less about its creator than about heating his home.

Eventually the fireplace worked splendidly--the wood had to be stacked differently than in traditional fireplaces--and the shallowness of the design caused heat to radiate sevenfold back into the house. That experience, and several other unexpected encounters with Rumford’s name and accomplishments over the years, eventually led to his writing the forthcoming "The Count of Concord." The novel seemed to insist on being told. If it weren’t for chance encounters, just imagine, as Philippa Gregory might say, what some writers would miss.

Nick Owchar

Why we do it in New York

Last night, at a ceremony at the National Arts Club on Gramercy Park in Manhattan, the finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were announced. Before I was hired on at The Times, I believed this event should be re-invented; why was a Los Angeles newspaper announcing its book prize finalists in New York? It seemed like a blatant case of provincialism. Over the last few years, though, I’ve come to see this as a matter not of provincialism but of necessity--or perhaps it’s just reflective of the provincialism of the publishing industry.

After all, despite significant growth in regional imprints, American publishing remains rooted in New York City, much as the movie business is in Hollywood. In fact, I’ve always found significant similarities between the two industries--their clubbiness, their small-town love of gossip--with the exception that in Hollywood, there’s real money to be made. Certainly, that was one of the hot topics at last night’s reception: the financial instability of the writing world, which seems to cut across the grain from publishing to journalism. Four experienced editors were recently laid off as a result of the Harcourt/Houghton Mifflin merger, and with Publishers Weekly up for sale and 120 job cuts announced yesterday at Newsday, the landscape seems very insecure indeed.

For The Times, then, throwing a book party in New York offers a way of connecting with the industry, of presenting ourselves to a roomful of editors, writers, publishers and journalists all in one place. It’s also a way of celebrating books and book culture--which is, by its nature, national or international in scope. The Times’ Book Prizes are not limited to authors in the U.S. but are open to everyone; this year’s finalists include Per Petterson and John Banville (oops, sorry ... Benjamin Black).

As to why this is important, well ... like any small, insular industry, publishing can have a very narrow vision; it can be difficult to see outside the fishbowl of New York. You can bemoan this, or you can deal with it, but either way, that’s how it is. If the mountain won’t come to you, in other words, you have to go tell it on the mountain, which is why we announce the Book Prize nominations in New York.

David L. Ulin

Gone, but not forgotten

Andrew Malcolm remembers William F. Buckley (and that's some memory).

TC Boyle remembers Dutton's Brentwood (and that's some mid-90s style in the photo).

The Guardian remembers literary activist Ronald Segal, who founded the Penguin African Library, and Robin Moore, whose book The Green Berets spawned the John Wayne movie and a not-at-all-peace-and-love 1966 pop song.

The great alt-country music chronicler No Depression Magazine will pass into memory, come spring.

Who remembers a 1947 Robert Frost conversation with Dartmouth students? Transcripts of the long-forgotten lecture and Q&A will be published by Literary Imagination.

Carolyn Kellogg

Things come together

"Things fall apart, things come together," Colum McCann said Tuesday night from the stage at New York’s Town Hall, not quite halfway through the PEN American Center tribute to Chinua Achebe and the 50th anniversary of his revolutionary novel, "Things Fall Apart." When Achebe’s first novel was published in 1958, African literature was nonexistent territory; by looking at the effects of colonialism on tribal culture, he literally dreamed an entire genre into being.

McCann was just one of a number of writers who came to Town Hall to pay homage to the work. Chris Abani--like Achebe, a Nigerian--opened his remarks by speaking in Ibo before switching to what he called "the more primitive language" of English. Abani recalled that, as a boy, his brother hand-copied "Things Fall Apart" into a notebook to impress a girlfriend with the novel; it was the first time, Abani said, that he ever understood the aphrodisiac power of the written word.

The tribute’s most affecting moments were almost entirely personal: Edwidge Danticat noted that Achebe was the first writer she’d ever came across with a name as strange as hers; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talked about growing up in Nigeria and identifying with the white boys and girls in her English children’s books, as if it were inconceivable that her own stories could ever exist on the written page.

This is one of the key legacies of "Things Fall Apart," that it offered permission to a half-century’s worth of writers, declaring forcefully and without apology, that literature could encompass any and all stories, that everyone should have a stake. Fifty years later, it hardly seems a stretch to suggest that without Achebe’s novel, we would be a literary culture with fewer voices, less engagement, less of a sense of how wide a world that writers can (and ought to) engage.

The Asterix and Obelix of literary magazines

By which I don't mean one is smart and one is dumb, but rather one is little and the other is big. I'm talking about One Story and Ninth Letter, two topnotch literary journals that inhabit opposite ends of the form-and-function spectrum.

Let's start with One Story, the little one. Every issue is, quite simply, one story. At 5 by 7 inches, as many pages as it takes to finish the story, each issue fits in a jacket or jeans pocket, or even a little purse. They're terribly efficient: text only, stapled, the back page for an author bio and inside back cover for credits. One Story arrives about every three weeks, and features both debut authors and big cheeses; the current issue is by Ron Carlson, author of nine books of fiction and director of the grad fiction program at Irvine.

For me, One Story is brilliant for three reasons. The first, as the editors proclaim, is that "everyone has time to read one story." Maybe that time is while standing in line at the post office, or grabbing a quick lunch -- which leads me to the second reason -- it's so portable. Other magazines are portableish - they don't fit in pockets, they get crumpled in big bags, they have weird inserts that make them fold funny. One Story is grab-and-go. So you can bring it with you and, when caught waiting someplace, pull it out and use that time to read a story. The third thing about this little genius is that it's also -- and I feel bad saying this -- disposable. It's easy to leave. Read the story, hand it off. For the next person who grabs that seat at the lunch table, or to the friends whose couch you crashed on (yes, I do this regularly, in case you offer me a couch). When you're done, you're done -- which means that the writing actually has the potential to circulate more than if it were in a big shiny package.

Not that there's anything wrong with big shiny packages. Ninth Letter is very big and very shiny and very literary, too. Put out by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a joint project of the English department and School of Art and Design, Ninth Letter is different not just issue to issue, but page to page. It's 9x12 inches, full bleed, so the images on each page stretch to the edge of the paper, without margins, and this issue clocks in at more than 200 pages. I haven't seen anything this wildly, perfectly beautiful since the dear departed Nest (a home design magazine that went beyond shelter porn to the heart of mad inspired design). By "perfectly" I  don't mean it's without flaw so much, as the design perfectly fits/completments/informs its fiction/poetry/nonfiction content.

In the latest issue, a story by Dan Chaon features a 20-something narrator who's slowly coming apart instead of fixing up the house his parents owned; the pages' backgrounds are big blurry photos, tinged with institutional green, of broken lightplates and bathroom corners creeping with decay. There is a pull-out nonfiction piece by Matt Roberts called "Pre-Vasectomy Instruction No. 7," which, quite frankly, I'm afraid to detach and unfold, for fear of what I might find. And remarkably, a minimally-illustrated piece by William Gaddis -- yes, that William Gaddis -- written in 1947, never before published.

The differences between Ninth Letter and One Story are all the more interesting when you learn that both are less than five years old. Launched in the face of publishing industry pessimism, both magazines seem to have taken their own genius to an extreme that works. Ninth Letter comes twice a year, One Story, 14 times or more, and a subscription to either one runs about $20.   

Carolyn Kellogg

When bookstores die

  For Dutton’s Brentwood:

" ‘Welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, Daniel.... "
" ‘This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens. This place was already ancient when my father brought me here for the first time, many years ago. Perhaps as old as the city itself. Nobody knows for certain how long it has existed, or who created it. I will tell you what my father told me, though. When a library disappears, or a bookshop closes down, when a book is consigned to oblivion, those of us who know this place, its guardians, make sure that it gets here. In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader’s hands.’ "
                       (from "The Shadow of the Wind: A Novel" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon)

The guardians will be busy after April 30. Best of luck to Doug and his crew.

Nick Owchar

The end of the book world as we know it. Have a cuppa.

Stay away from tea, because it’s easy to read the end of literature in the tea leaves if you try. The NEA is in the habit of releasing reports about the demise of reading. In Los Angeles, the venerable bookstore Dutton’s Brentwood announced yesterday that it’s closing its doors (also here, here, here and here), without plans to relocate or reopen.

But if you stick to coffee, you might just think books are doing OK. Starting today, you’ll find "Beautiful Boy" by David Sheff for sale in more than 7,000 Starbucks nationwide. It’s the fourth book offered by the coffee giant, which seems to have figured out a winning formula. Two of the earlier books –- Mitch Albom’s "For One More Day" and “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah -- sold more than 100,000 copies in the chain’s shops. That alone is a respectable sales number, from what I hear, and of course the books continue to sell in more traditional venues, like bookstores (as long as they stay open). Who knows what Sheff’s book –- which is about addiction -– will do with the compulsively-caffeinated crowd lining up for their lattes.

If you want to hear more of David Sheff, he’s on Leonard Lopate’s radio show tomorrow –- Lopate is on WNYC, but you can catch him on the internet live at 9am Pacific -– right about the time you get to your desk with your coffee – or tea -- in hand.

Carolyn Kellogg

photo by Michael via Flickr

Diablo, JT and Pinky, oh my

Diablo Cody, who won the Oscar for best original screenplay last night for "Juno," is fast becoming the Dita Von Teese  of screenwriters: She’s a sexy, photogenic bad girl (in a smart-hot kind of way). She’s got a knack for fame, and she’s blogging her swift ascent.

One of the coolest things about getting O-nommed is the nominee luncheon, where everyone gets together to schmooze, pose for a "class photo" and receive honorary certificates suitable for framing. (We also got Oscar logo hoodies -- no joke! I'll be sporting that thing unnecessarily for years to come. "Hmm, it's a little crisp outside -- BETTER PUT ON MY OSCAR NOMINEE HOODIE.")

Swaddled inside that hoodie, and inside Diablo Cody, is a woman who was once Brook Busey-Hunt. When she quit her day job –- to become a stripper, then memoirist, now screenwriter –- she shed Brook for Diablo. Her previous blog had a dirty, dirty title, and I guess it’s obvious that Brook doesn’t have Diablo’s sassy flair.

Pen names have a long history, which I don’t know nearly as much about as I should. I do know that George Eliot ("Middlemarch") was actually Mary Ann Evans, publishing under a masculine pseudonym. Mary Ann thought George’s work would be taken more seriously than hers; Brook might not be able to say everything Diablo can. Crafting a writerly persona seems perfectly acceptable.

Unless you take that persona too far, a la Laura Albert. The woman behind JT LeRoy is featured in a long article in the latest LA Weekly. JT LeRoy, an abused teen with drug and gender issues, was a total fabrication. Laura Albert went beyond writing books in his name; she tried to prove he existed, maintaining phone friendships as JT with literary luminaries (Mary Gaitskill) and having a friend pose as JT at public events. Perhaps inevitably, she also blogged as JT, even continuing to post after the story of the hoax broke in New York Magazine. Albert, now 42 and unrepentant, comes across, in Nancy Rommelman’s LA Weekly piece, as a manipulative liar with an unbecoming hunger for fame.

Yet despite all her transgressions, Albert did write the JT LeRoy books. Is it fair to judge the writing differently knowing she was a privileged adult, not a troubled teen? If we can set aside the extraordinary, unwise, perhaps unhealthy lengths to which Albert went to create the character of JT (and I’m not sure we can), is she really doing anything that different from what George Eliot, or Diablo Cody, did? Isn’t inventing characters and inhabiting them what writers do when they write?

Which brings me to me. I have a blog called Pinky’s Paperhaus. But I am Carolyn Kellogg, a name blessed with alliteration, if little else. A few years ago I needed a persona for my Internet radio show about music and books; the show was on a prickly political station about which my then-employer would not have been pleased. Enter Pinky –- and later, exit Internet radio for blogland. Does that make me Pinky? Yes, although I don’t always know what that means. Like anyone else with a persona, sometimes the boundaries of self and construction get a little unclear. I’m Pinky, and I’m also Carolyn. Here, I will do my best to bring the two together. Hello.

Carolyn Kellogg

Introducing Carolyn Kellogg

Editors’ Note: The blogosphere is such a large landscape, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review is proud to announce Carolyn Kellogg’s arrival to help us navigate this terrain. Carolyn has been a frequent contributor to our pages (check out her recent review of Sarah Boxer’s "Ultimate Blogs") and she’s, well, just so darn smart about these things. In the weeks to come, Carolyn and the staff will be working together to bring you the best, up-to-date coverage of all things literary on Jacket Copy. In fact, look for her first contribution this afternoon, a provocative post about Oscar winner Diablo Cody, as well as Laura Albert and so much more. Here's a bit more information about her, in her own words:

Born in Florida and raised in Rhode Island, Carolyn Kellogg moved to Los Angeles to study at USC, which she did, with some success, between bouts of dropping out. She’s easily distracted by loud music and spicy food and even politics: In 1992, she went to the Democratic convention as a member of Jerry Brown’s staff. Proprietor of the book blog www.pinkyspaperhaus.com and former editor of LAist.com, she’s been writing and producing Web content since 1996. Currently, she is teaching and pursuing a master’s in fine arts at the University of Pittsburgh. Her first literary obsession, at age 6, was the Nancy Drew mystery series; she prefers the blue covers with the silhouette endpapers.

The peril -- or wisdom? -- of reading too much: 5 Signs

Weds. a.m.:
Is there such a thing as reading too much? Sounds like heresy. What with all the studies that show Americans are reading less, reading while watching TV or reading only for work. "To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence," the National Endowment for the Arts study released in November, revealed that as a nation we are reading less and less for pleasure: one half of all Americans ages 18 to 24 read no books for pleasure, a number that correlates with less participation in civic and cultural life, lower pay and fewer chances for advancement at work. Yeah, well, reading too much also has its perils.

Here are some of the downsides of reading too much:

Disorientation: The mood and landscape of the book you are reading is dark and obscure but you actually live in sunny Southern California.

Amplification: The heightened sense of urgency you feel reading the novel is incompatible with daily life.

Social Interaction: The colleagues you don’t know in the elevator are not ready for the kind of intimate conversation that takes place in the novel you are reading.

Dissatisfaction: The people in your life are not as thrilling, fascinating, emotionally evolved, intelligent, sincere or well-read as the characters in the novel. Your own life seems gray, wooden and boring by comparison.

Severe Loneliness: No one you know has read the novel you just finished, so there is no one to talk to about it, which heightens your sense of alienation and isolation.

Sounds like a recipe for psychosis to me.

Susan Salter Reynolds