The uproar which met Sceptre's announcement that Glen David Gold's Sunnyside would be a Waterstone's exclusive for three months, an imbroglio in which I am gratified to have played a small part, has concluded in notification today from Hachette CEO Tim Hely-Hutchinson that the deal is off. What's more this news came out on Radio 4's Today this morning, which I think reflects how important, practically and symbolically, this issue really is for the trade.
This is wonderful, a testament to indie power. Having finished the book since I first posted about it, my attitude could only harden, as it really stunningly good and I don't want Waterstone's being able to use it as part of any deluded claim that they are the guardians of literature in the UK.
So, my fellow indie booksellers, the ball is in our court: let's keep our eye on it. Let's make this book ours. It deserves the support of real booksellers. I can't think of an instance, in my time as a bookseller at least, where such a long hiatus between books has concluded in a novel of such wit, beauty and ingenuity.
A colleague of mine said recently that she regretted having read Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance because she would never again experience the wonder of first reading it. Sunnyside will, for many of its readers, will be a book like that. And we want them to remember that it was that knowledgeable bookseller at their local who told them they just had to read it.
Mind you, I'm not sure about that cover....
Friday 27 February 2009
Sunday 15 February 2009
First impressions
I've just read, at the suggestion of a fan at Faber, The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews, an author about whom I know nothing. I wouldn't say I was smitten but I was certainly quietly impressed by an author who can make a simple, and in many ways overfamiliar, story into something fresh. It's a variation on the great American road trip and its concomitant personal enlightenment, but it eschews the wearisome pretensions which started with Kerouac and have had their exponents in every generation since.
Two children - well, young teenagers - are taken to find their drop-out father by their aunt, when their disturbed mother is taken into hospital; initially, I had visions of yet another attempt to ape A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. But Toews' attention to detail and dry wit allow the interplay between Thebes, Logan and their aunt to give a plausible portrait of the entire family dynamic and how it has come to where the book begins and then travels. Few writers do children or teenagers well, crediting them with more adult psychologies than seems plausible, but the slight precocity of both children is given backstory and context. It reminded me of The Outcast in that respect.
Even if I can't quite bring myself to recommend this book wholeheartedly, Toews is a thoughtful writer, who resists the temptation to smear her ego all over the text. She's written an anti-Beat novel, I suppose.
German literature, meanwhile, is embracing 'the new impressionism'. Supposedly, How The Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić (he's actually Bosnian, but now lives and writes in Germany) is in the vanguard, but I felt he fell into every trap which Toews was able to step over with so little fuss. It's a mish-mash of snapshots and episodes, the cumulative effect of which is to convey the brutal intrusion of sectarian conflict and its corruption of human decency, but I really felt it needed a bit more narrative backbone. Thumbnail sketches result in little more than the imprint of character.
Stanišić is endlessly inventive and the novel has innumerable great set-pieces, but the trickery starts to wear thin long before the end. I'm all for style over content when the writer has imagination and originality to pull it off - and, in this case, it may be that some of the dazzle is dulled by translation - but the hype with which this book was heralded ultimately does it a disservice. He's one to watch too, but no more.
Two children - well, young teenagers - are taken to find their drop-out father by their aunt, when their disturbed mother is taken into hospital; initially, I had visions of yet another attempt to ape A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. But Toews' attention to detail and dry wit allow the interplay between Thebes, Logan and their aunt to give a plausible portrait of the entire family dynamic and how it has come to where the book begins and then travels. Few writers do children or teenagers well, crediting them with more adult psychologies than seems plausible, but the slight precocity of both children is given backstory and context. It reminded me of The Outcast in that respect.
Even if I can't quite bring myself to recommend this book wholeheartedly, Toews is a thoughtful writer, who resists the temptation to smear her ego all over the text. She's written an anti-Beat novel, I suppose.
German literature, meanwhile, is embracing 'the new impressionism'. Supposedly, How The Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić (he's actually Bosnian, but now lives and writes in Germany) is in the vanguard, but I felt he fell into every trap which Toews was able to step over with so little fuss. It's a mish-mash of snapshots and episodes, the cumulative effect of which is to convey the brutal intrusion of sectarian conflict and its corruption of human decency, but I really felt it needed a bit more narrative backbone. Thumbnail sketches result in little more than the imprint of character.
Stanišić is endlessly inventive and the novel has innumerable great set-pieces, but the trickery starts to wear thin long before the end. I'm all for style over content when the writer has imagination and originality to pull it off - and, in this case, it may be that some of the dazzle is dulled by translation - but the hype with which this book was heralded ultimately does it a disservice. He's one to watch too, but no more.
Sunnyside down
I've just started reading Glen David Gold's, Sunnyside, a book not so much long-awaited as very much unexpected. I'm only forty-odd pages in, so I'll forbear to comment for now, other than remark that it would seem that Gold's time since Carter Beats the Devil appears to have been very well spent: rich prose, delightful vocabulary and the purposeful research of little details which can make a book come alive.
But my beginning the book coincided, coincidentally, with the receipt of a letter from Sceptre , outlining their disturbing plans for the book. The UK hardback edition is to be a Waterstone's exclusive in July, with the rest of the trade allowed a trade paperback edition in October.
I can guess at the commercial rationale for this. Sceptre are an imprint of the Hachette group, which remains in dispute with Amazon about discount; this has forced Amazon to source to stock from wholesalers or to leave sales to sellers on Marketplace, so, principally, it's two fingers up to Amazon, telling them that their support for what I assume will turn out to be Sceptre's biggest title of the year is not required.
The executive director of one UK publisher recently me me that their German counterparts had received a letter from amazon.de telling them to choose between giving them 2% more discount or extended credit terms. They literally had to tick a box to choose their 'preference'. It was heartening to hear that they simply had told them to get lost, as had many other publishers.
So, up yours, Amazon, indeed; and wouldn't it be great to see another publisher stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them, instead of seeing HarperCollins jump in with a rather gauche letter from CEO Victoria Barnsley on their homepage plugging their new releases (and, gloriously, misspelling the name of one of her own authors)?
But promising signed trade paperbacks to the independents to make up for three months without the genuinely desirable hardback (trade paperbacks: all of the unwieldiness with none of the quality) is poor compensation and will continue to drive people away from independents, who have enough trouble trying to compete with chain discounts without being deemed unfit to help launch a major new novel.
Maybe, if its was something from one of Hachette's more commercial imprints, something which would sell a bigger proportion in WHSmith or supermarkets, then it would be less of an attack on the integrity of independents' stock ranges. But this is grim news for the book trade and a precedent to be deterred.
In the short term, it may have some benefits for Hachette, and Waterstone's are doubtless thrilled with their coup. Amazon won't be stopped from flogging the US edition (which is due two months earlier) instead, but the rest of the UK trade will be probably be intimidated into withdrawing any copies they source from the US.
Three possible responses suggest themselves. First, the rest of the trade boycotts the book entirely, trade and mass-market paperbacks included: glorious but impractical. Second, we all order in the US hardback and make sure we have it for those two months before the UK release: Sceptre wouldn't be able to send threatening letters to all of us (and I'm not sure if their territorial copyright applies before the UK release). Third, we all go and buy copies from Waterstones and and resell them at a slightly higher price: a bit wet, frankly.
All of these unfortunately mean giving the whole affair the sort of press which will probably boost sales. I suspect that may be part of Sceptre's grand plan. So, fourth, we all give in, go home and let Waterstone's impose their pitiful vision of range bookselling on the general public.
I don't care how good Sunnyside turns out to be. If these bleak possibilities are what we are left with, I'd rather the book was never published.
But my beginning the book coincided, coincidentally, with the receipt of a letter from Sceptre , outlining their disturbing plans for the book. The UK hardback edition is to be a Waterstone's exclusive in July, with the rest of the trade allowed a trade paperback edition in October.
I can guess at the commercial rationale for this. Sceptre are an imprint of the Hachette group, which remains in dispute with Amazon about discount; this has forced Amazon to source to stock from wholesalers or to leave sales to sellers on Marketplace, so, principally, it's two fingers up to Amazon, telling them that their support for what I assume will turn out to be Sceptre's biggest title of the year is not required.
The executive director of one UK publisher recently me me that their German counterparts had received a letter from amazon.de telling them to choose between giving them 2% more discount or extended credit terms. They literally had to tick a box to choose their 'preference'. It was heartening to hear that they simply had told them to get lost, as had many other publishers.
So, up yours, Amazon, indeed; and wouldn't it be great to see another publisher stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them, instead of seeing HarperCollins jump in with a rather gauche letter from CEO Victoria Barnsley on their homepage plugging their new releases (and, gloriously, misspelling the name of one of her own authors)?
But promising signed trade paperbacks to the independents to make up for three months without the genuinely desirable hardback (trade paperbacks: all of the unwieldiness with none of the quality) is poor compensation and will continue to drive people away from independents, who have enough trouble trying to compete with chain discounts without being deemed unfit to help launch a major new novel.
Maybe, if its was something from one of Hachette's more commercial imprints, something which would sell a bigger proportion in WHSmith or supermarkets, then it would be less of an attack on the integrity of independents' stock ranges. But this is grim news for the book trade and a precedent to be deterred.
In the short term, it may have some benefits for Hachette, and Waterstone's are doubtless thrilled with their coup. Amazon won't be stopped from flogging the US edition (which is due two months earlier) instead, but the rest of the UK trade will be probably be intimidated into withdrawing any copies they source from the US.
Three possible responses suggest themselves. First, the rest of the trade boycotts the book entirely, trade and mass-market paperbacks included: glorious but impractical. Second, we all order in the US hardback and make sure we have it for those two months before the UK release: Sceptre wouldn't be able to send threatening letters to all of us (and I'm not sure if their territorial copyright applies before the UK release). Third, we all go and buy copies from Waterstones and and resell them at a slightly higher price: a bit wet, frankly.
All of these unfortunately mean giving the whole affair the sort of press which will probably boost sales. I suspect that may be part of Sceptre's grand plan. So, fourth, we all give in, go home and let Waterstone's impose their pitiful vision of range bookselling on the general public.
I don't care how good Sunnyside turns out to be. If these bleak possibilities are what we are left with, I'd rather the book was never published.
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