Twelve Days to Publication

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Back in July, the folks at my publisher, Henry Holt, told me that they would be submitting The Season of Second Chances for Amazon Vine reviews. They didn’t say this with bright smiling faces, I noted; they said it with furrowed brows. Publishers aren’t in control of those early reviews, they explained, and many of them feel that the Vine reviewers take their role of ‘gatekeeper’ so seriously that they actually keep some good content from ever reaching their target audiences.

Okay. I said, So don’t do it! I mean, I’m so nervous about the idea of reviews at all; if you have real worries, why tempt fate? But they did. And my brow has been furrowed since July.

So – here we are, two weeks before publication. The early reviews began to trickle in last week. Big exhale. We’ve only had five so far, but the first Amazon Vine readers have been truly generous – delivering the kind of reviews one crosses their fingers and hopes to see. Phew.

But yesterday there was a hitch. And it wasn’t the typical, “he’s just not that into you” problem: A two star review appeared. And you must see it to believe it.

The“Chick-Lit-Loving-Wife” he claimed, didn’t like my book at all. Too wordy, he said. Too many references she didn’t get. Too much not like Chick-Lit. Very bad. Very disappointing.

Except, of course, that it’s not supposed to be “Chick-Lit”. It’s a book that assumes you paid attention in your American-Lit class. It’s a book that makes references to Sontag and Beckett, Shakespeare and Mary McCarthy, Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel, for god’s sake, and WB Yeats. I even talk about the reference books the protagonist holds dear – her Edward Sapir, Bullfinch and Brewer, Van Doren and Joseph Campbell. And all through The Season of Second Chances there are references, inside jokes and bits of play with our heroine’s major subject of study: the Gilded Age Literature of Henry James and Edith Wharton. Even her dog is named Henry James. No wonder the poor “wife” didn’t like the book! But it’s as though she’s blaming the steak for not being ice-cream.

I will be on a panel at the Empire State Book Festival in Albany on April 10th with “women-who-write”: Cathleen Schine, Elizabeth Noble and Jamie Attenberg. And, I understand we are going to talk about “Women’s” Literature. As you might expect, I have a mouthful to say about that ghetto – and “Chick-Lit” is only the beginning.

Two Weeks to Publication

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

For more than thirty years at MEIER, I’ve seen my commercial work reproduced in magazines and newspapers or broadcast on television or radio. I’ve gotten a lot of attention and I’ve won a slew of awards. And that’s great. But I never set out to create ‘Art’. If people didn’t like what I’d designed – if they hated the typeface, wished the picture had been brighter or darker, or didn’t understand why I mentioned truffles in an ad for a watch, I honestly didn’t care. A long history of hitting goals for clients gave me that confidence. What I looked for was not approval, but resonance with the very specific target market I’d made those creative decisions to reach. In other words, the tools that moved commerce along were never confused with the more ephemeral, subjective aspects of ‘Art’. Not to say that the work we made didn’t have to be creative, artistic or even beautiful or moving, to do its job. But it wasn’t going to be judged according to its beauty. My work was going to be judged according to its effectiveness. And that I could live with.

But this – this countdown – this waiting for the launch of my first novel… This is another kettle of fish.

Now, it seems, the work itself has to appeal to people. Not the watch, not the call-to-action, but my book. And I’ll only know if it’s really fulfilling its mission, by whether people actually appreciate the book, buy the book, recommend the book - and want to spend time with its characters. I’m not so comfortable with this.

I remember seeing Neil Simon discuss comedy. If no one laughs, he said – it’s not funny. I thought that I’d never have the heart for that kind of brutal feedback. And I still don’t. But – here goes.

The Season of Second Chances is two weeks away from launch. We’re an Indie-Bound Choice for April. And Leah, Evelyn and Ben, here at Meier are working away to tray and create buzz – online, in-print and otherwise. The stars would appear to be aligned to give this book as good a birth as possible. But that’s all we can do. Now I have to sit back and face the fact that someone (and more than one someone) is going to actually have to like the work, itself. Scary.

The Real Thing

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Last evening Marjorie Braman (my Holt editor and now, friend) rang the doorbell at 907. Leah and Evelyn and I were still meeting about PR for SSC and Venetia Kelly, Frank’s new book. Ben had just left – and the elevator was up on the 5th floor, as Billy had gone. Marjorie? Just stopping by? No one in New York just “stops by”. What’s up?

I opened the door to see Marjorie glowing. She apologized for ‘barging in’ – but she had a present for me and it couldn’t wait. Hmmmm. Marjorie has shown up before with gifts – a wonderful tall crystal vase that she thought would look great in 907 with its 12’ ceilings, and many offerings from Macmillen that M thought would catch my fancy. This was different. From her capacious bag (the kind our mothers told us would ruin our posture) she pulled a hard cover book.

There it was. I held, in my hands, the first hardbound copy of The Season of Second Chances. It’s a real book, I thought. And – it’s a really beautiful book.

The cover is lovely. And the deckled pages and the end papers -- Did we tell you it has end papers? The flowers on the cover and end papers, if I haven’t already mentioned it, I will now -- are taken from the work of William Morris, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morris) the founder of the English Arts and Crafts Movement – and a hero of mine for so many reasons. Even beyond his politics and the obvious taste he displayed in choosing his friends and his craft and his work – we are left with the decidedly un-political evidence of his talent. And while we can discuss (and an interesting discussion it would be, too) whether talent without intent, without intellectual direction or vision – would give us the same physical body of work, or leave an equal emotional response in its wake, here, a hundred years later, we are left with beauty that still sings with an appreciation of earthly delights, the restraint of human discipline and the unbounded mystery of talent.

On top of it, Teddy chooses William Morris wallpaper for Joy’s house – and the flowers and vines of the end papers suggest that very paper. So now when you hold the book, you can actually see what Teddy had in mind. It all couldn’t seem more real or wonderful.

All The Things You Were

Friday, February 19, 2010

When I launched MEIER, my marketing agency, in the summer of 1979, we built our gray flannel walled offices at 37 West 57th Street. We were on the third floor, overlooking the wide, bustling, street. My own space in the agency had an arched casement window, that I could open on the rare fine, quiet night, and angle to catch surprisingly fresh air, as the breeze ran from the Hudson, a few blocks west. One early evening I came in to find a saxophone player on the sidewalk in front of our office building. He was clearly talented and I stopped to listen, and then asked him to play Jerome Kern's "All The Things You Are". He played it beautifully, and when he was done, he asked if I worked in the building. I pointed up to the third floor where the windows were lighted against the dusk. “If the little arched window on the right is lit, it means I’m in”, I told him. From then on, when he arrived at the building, he would look up to see if my window was lit and if so, he would play "All The Things You Are" – to let me know he’d arrived. It was one of those great private New York things that couldn’t as easily happen anywhere else in the world.

I know it's crazy, but when I pass 37 West 57th Street today, it feels as though my studio is still upstairs. Darcey is up there, leaning over the mechanical boards, trying to get something ready to be delivered that night to the New York Times, Sunny Bates is waiting to tell me what funny thing happened to her during that afternoon. And we're still in our twenties and scurrying (too fast, I know now; not fast enough, I thought then) toward the future. I’m sure I hear "All The Things You Are" playing somewhere, in the hum of the city.