First Editions Club

The Story behind the Pick (written by Kaycie)

“Mr. and Mrs. Fang called it art. Their children called it mischief. ‘You make a mess and then you walk away from it,’ their daughter, Annie, told them. ‘It’s a lot more complicated than that, honey,’ Mrs. Fang said as she handed detailed breakdowns of the event to each member of the family. ‘But there’s a simplicity in what we do as well,’ Mr. Fang said. ‘Yes, there is that, too,’ his wife replied. Annie and her younger brother, Buster, said nothing.”

And so begins the story of the Family Fang. Mr. and Mrs. Fang are award-winning performance artists, meaning they stage “events,” by which I mean upsetting, but humorous, public displays, and their best props are their two children Child A and Child B, otherwise known as Annie and Buster. After this particular “event” in which the children help their parents stage a candy store robbery, you find Annie and Buster, waiting for their parents to extricate themselves from trouble, tossing pennies into the mall’s fountain “each making wishes that they hoped were simple enough to come true.”

The Family Fang is a novel about, well, a family, and while I don’t think Wilson generalizes with his characters (the Fangs are a very unique family and I don’t think many of us can compare our childhoods to those of the Fang children), Annie and Buster do make us realize the extent to which our parents can affect us—even as adults. Sure, the Fang events are ridiculous and it might be good fun to watch one happen in a shopping mall near you, but at what cost to the young Fangs? I don’t want to give away too much, but let’s just say that this black comedy does not have a fluffy ending tied up with a bow. Wilson’s humorous tale does have real substance and questions the consequences of raising children in a household where art is placed above all else. I particularly like the way Janet Maslin, in the NY Times review, phrased it: “All children eventually question lies their parents have told them, but the Fangs take that chicanery to a whole new level.”

The Story behind the Pick

Did you know that Flannery O'Connor is a character in A Good Hard Look? Sarah Huston at Penguin shares this interview on how Ann Napolitano went about creating Flannery, the character.

How did you go about creating Flannery, the character?

When she showed up in the novel—which felt right, intuitively—I was terrified. I did a lot of research, of course. I started by reading everything I could get my hands on. I re-read Flannery’s stories, her essays and two novels. I read the one existing biography on her, and several critical essays about her work. I visited Andalusia (the Georgia farm where she lived with her mother) and walked all over Milledgeville.

The real answer though is that it took me years to create “my Flannery”. I was so scared to misrepresent her that I avoided going into her head for a long time. I thought that if I depicted her from a distance, I would be less likely to mess her up. Not shockingly, that was a limited path. It was only when I truly committed to her presence in the story that she came to life.

 A comment from a Lemuria reader, Nan Graves Goodman:

". . . One last thing which struck me as noteworthy about this novel, and again, being familiar with O’Connor’s stories, enables me to make this observation: grace and redemption, maybe not in their full forms, but certainly in small doses, do ring true in A Good Hard Look, for some of the characters do find a way through their chaos to befriend and help their human, as well as animal friends."

"Finally, I would also surmise that Napolitano also handles Flannery, the person, with respect, especially her debilitating bouts with the disease of lupus, which finally took her life in 1962. This is a novel which Mississippians and other Southerners should read, for it does take 'a good hard look' at one of our very most remarkable and talented Southern writers."

Read more of Nan's blog here.

Read more of the interview with Ann Napolitano here.

The Story behind the Pick (written by Joe)

We Mississippians are always looking for the next big writer to come out of our state – you know John Grisham and Greg Iles did it so who’s next? Well, if you haven’t caught onto the fact that Ace Atkins is the real deal then now is the perfect time.

The Ranger is the first of a new series for Ace. The protagonist comes home to Mississippi from Iraq and uncovers crime and mystery in his hometown. His uncle has died under mysterious circumstances and some unruly characters have taken over the town. The Washington Post has referred to The Ranger as redneck noir and compared Ace to Greg Iles – not a bad description and not bad company.

 The Story behind the Pick (written by Kaycie)

Q: You published your first book, Flights, in 1983. Over twenty years later, how do you think you have changed as a writer? Do you feel that your voice or process has changed or progressed at all?

A: Ha! I love that “at all.” Now I’m demoralized. I think I’ve gotten significantly more ambitious, and wilder with my subject matter.

The above quotes are taken from Knopf’s Q & A series, specifically from a recent conversation they had with Jim Shepard about the release of his latest collection of short stories You Think That’s Bad. This book is Shepard’s fourth collection of short stories (he has also written six novels), and our May First Editions Club pick.

While I can’t personally speak for the ambition and wildness in Shepard’s earlier work, this new collection is certainly ambitious. Several of us Lemurians were reading You Think That’s Bad while debating May’s FEC pick, and though none of us had the same opinion on the stories, we could all definitely agree that they were unlike anything we’d read before.  Don't be intimidated by this fact though--Shepard's collection is fun, and it's so exciting for us Lemurians to encounter something we haven't seen before.

The New York Times recently hailed Shepard as the “master of the historical short story,” and I think that’s a perfect title for him. Many of the stories in You Think That’s Bad are based on the lives of real historical figures including Freya Stark (a British travel writer most well known for being the first Western woman to travel through the Arabian deserts), Eiji Tsuburaya (the special effects director for many Japanese sci-fi films, including Godzilla), and Gilles de Rais (Breton knight, companion-in-arms to Joan of Arc, and serial killer who targeted young boys). Many of Shepard’s stories are “research dependent” (another NY Times comment), making the collection not a pure escapism read, but should you be willing to do the work, you will be rewarded. It’s worth it to see Shepard’s mastery in play and perhaps you’ll even learn a little bit of history while you’re at it.

Going back to that interview question, I don’t think Shepard should feel demoralized at all. He’s quite a talent, and I personally cannot wait to meet Mr. Shepard and ask him more about his writing style and topic choices in person. I feel sure that it will be a fascinating discussion.

Jim Shepard’s third story collection, Like You’d Understand, Anyway, was a finalist for the National Book Award and won The Story Prize.  Project X won the 2005 Library of Congress/Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction, as well as the ALEX Award from the American Library Association.

His short fiction has appeared in, among other magazines, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, DoubleTake, the New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope: All-Story, and Playboy, and he was a columnist on film for the magazine The Believer.   Four of his stories have been chosen for the Best American Short Stories, and one for a Pushcart Prize.  He teaches at Williams College and in the Warren Wilson MFA program, and lives in Williamstown with his wife Karen Shepard, his three children, and two beagles. (Bio Source: http://jimshepard.wordpress.com/)

The Story behind the Pick (written by Kaycie)

Not long after I started working at Lemuria last summer, our Random House reps stopped by to pitch some of the upcoming titles to us booksellers.  When they pulled out advanced reader copies of Karen Russell’s  Swamplandia! I thought there was going to be a real knock-down drag-out bookseller battle to see who got their hands on one.  I had never heard of Karen Russell at that point, but it was enough to convince me that I needed to see what she was all about.

I did a little research on Russell and found out that she had been chosen by The New Yorker for their fiction feature “20 Under 40,” which, as the name suggests, provides interviews and stories by 20 writers under 40 that The New Yorker considers to be worth watching and following as their careers unfold. I’m an avid reader of New Yorker fiction picks so I took their choice of Russell to be an excellent sign.

The next week I purchased a copy of Russell’s short story collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves and devoured it (much like a girl raised by a wolf, I guess you could say). It’s the kind of short story collection that I could read over and over again, and I wish that my own life was enveloped in the kind of magical realism that Russell invents in St. Lucy’s.  The novel Swamplandia! is an expansion of “Ava Wrestles an Alligator,” the first story in this collection, so I found myself with familiar characters except now they had a back story.

In the New York Times book review Emma Donoghue had this to say about Russell’s magical realism and the evolution of “Ava Wrestles an Alligator” to the novel Swamplandia!:

“The setting and the sisters (Ava and Osceola, a k a Ossie) are the same, but they now benefit from a full back story. It’s easier to care about the pleasures and miseries of life in a failing gator park when we know how the father (the self-proclaimed Chief Bigtree) and his family ended up there, and are led to understand what goes into the routine of putting on death-defying shows every day. If Russell’s style is a North American take on magical realism, then her commitment to life’s nitty-gritties anchors the magic; we are more inclined to suspend disbelief at the moments that verge on the paranormal because she has turned “Swamplandia!” into a credible world.”

The Story behind the Pick (written by Lisa)

Sometimes when we write The Story behind the Pick for our First Editions Club, few readers have ever heard of the book, but that is not the case with Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife. Since its March 8th release, it seems The Tiger's Wife and Téa Obreht have been front and center in every major newspaper. Some of the obvious points we've heard about her include her young age of 25 and being selected for 20 under 40: Stories from The New Yorker and as well as the National Book Foundation's list of 5 under 35.

The last time The New Yorker had put together such a collection was in 1999 and included excerpts from Michael Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest," as well as the work of Junot Diaz, Jonathan Franzen, Jhumpa Lahiri and Edwidge Dandicat. Téa has this to say about the honor:

[It's] really humbling, in the most positive way. It's surreal to be attached to this list of writers I admire. But I'm not going to let it go to my head." (Publisher's Weekly Interview)

"Ms. Obreht, who was born in the former Yugoslavia . . . writes with remarkable authority and eloquence, and she demonstrates an uncommon ability to move seamlessly between the gritty realm of the real and the more primary-colored world of the fable. It's not so much magical realism in the tradition of Gabriel García Márquez or Günter Grass as it is an extraordinarily limber exploration of allegory and myth making and the ways in which narratives (be they superstition, cultural beliefs or supernatural legends) reveal--and reflect back--the identities of individuals and communities: their dreams, fears, sympathies and hatreds." (March 11, 2011)

Téa Obreht was born in 1985 in the former Yugoslavia, and spent her childhood in Cyprus and Egypt before eventually immigrating to the United States in 1997. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Zoetrope: All-Story, The New York Times, and The Guardian, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Non-Required Reading. As mentioned before, she has been named by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best American fiction writers under forty and included in the National Book Foundation’s list of 5 Under 35. Téa Obreht lives in Ithaca, New York. (www.teaobreht.com)

THIS IS A LATER EDITION! When "The New Yorker" ran an excerpt of The Tiger's Wife in its 2009 Fiction issue, it was clear an astonishing new talent had arrived in the world of... (more)

The Story behind the Pick (written by Nan)

Like many Lemuria readers, I fondly remember the first time Joseph O'Connor came to Lemuria.

In the fall of 2007, I had been one of the lucky ones to hear the Irish author read from his novel Redemption Falls. Those of us who were at the reading will never forget the mesmerizing and beautiful reading, which probably lasted for at least an hour, which is a very unusual and longer length of time than most of our authors read. As I recall, John and the rest of us begged O’Connor to keep reading, for his melodious voice captivated us all as he read his own words exactly as he had intended with an author’s perfect expertise and dedication.

It goes without saying that we were eagerly awaiting Joseph's next book.

Ghost Light, set in and around Dublin and London, in the early 1900s and mid 1950s, respectively, will capture the heart of even the romantically challenged, as O'Connor slowly and beautifully winds out a masterfully created story of the historically renowned aristocratic Irish playwright John Synge and his much younger, common society love interest Molly.

John M. Synge (1871-1909)

As the years go by, Molly believes that Synge will one day marry her, even though his mother haunts and persuasively directs his every move. The heart wrenching story, told by the feisty young actress, often employs the second person "you", rarely used by many authors due to its challenge.

Drawing of Molly Allgood (Maire O'Neill) by Ben Bay, in the title role of Deirdre of the Sorrows by J.M. Synge, circa 1910. From the collection of the National Library of Ireland.

Told through a series of flashbacks, O'Connor allows the reader to view the actress throughout her lifetime with its tumultuous ups and downs as she yearns to be forever with Synge instead of only in hidden trysts nestled in the countryside. The Dublin and London settings superbly anchor the story and give the reader a perfected view of the two time periods. Add to this enticing mix a play director by the name of the famous poet William Butler Yeats, and the story gains even more intrigue. O'Connor's superb character development ranks at the very top in this novel.

It is hard not to compare this brilliantly written fiction with the "other" Irish author James Joyce, for the writing, to me, often migrating into stream of consciousness, reminiscent of some scenes in Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners. 

The signing and reading was held on February 18th. The experience has resonated with readers days and weeks after the event, and Lemuria looks forward to Joseph's next visit.

Ghost Light is published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

The Story behind the Pick (written by Joe)

January's First Editions Club can be one of the hardest to pick, but it can also be one of the most rewarding. Think about it, there are so many books coming out in the three months before Christmas, holiday sales etc., that January turns out to be somewhat of a dry month for publishing. So, very few books being released equals very few choices for the First Editions Club. The good news is January is the month where we have to work a little harder and dig a little deeper, and usually come up with something unique and fun. Often the pick is a first time author or an author for whom we really have to pitch a tour stop to the publisher. (all of the First Edition Club authors come to the store for a signing - it's part of the deal) For instance Kathryn Stockett, Stuart Dybeck, Mary Ward Brown, and William Gay have all been January FEC authors.

January 2011's First Editions Club pick is You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon. You Know When the Men Are Gone is the first book of short stories we've picked since Grisham's Ford County in 2009 and before that, Pia Ehrhardt's Famous Fathers, but we didn't pick it because it's short stories, (although I do love to promote the short story) no, this pick came about purely from reading and enjoying a book.

You Know When the Men Are Gone is a collection of somewhat connected short stories. This isn't one of those books where each story has the same characters, or where the stories can be pieced together into a sort of loosely hinged novel, no, these stories are more connected in theme. Each is about spouses, children, or parents of soldiers in the Middle East. There are stories that delve into the soldiers perspective, but for the most part the stories are mainly from the perspective of the wives of soldiers. But no worries, this is by no means a limitation, neither is the "wartime" theme - although readers may be concerned that they won't like the book for those reasons - as Lisa says here, "Fallon transcends the politics and gets to the heart of the matter: the families who serve our country. Besides that, she is a great writer, worthy of reading no matter what the theme." And isn't that why we're here? To find that reading experience that offers that sort of transcendence?

The signing and reading for You Know When the Men Are Gone was held on February 18th. YKWTMAG is published by Penguin Putnam.