THE LAST WORD; Divorce That Book

By Laura Miller

A READER recently wrote in to say she was ''amused -- vindicated in fact'' -- to discover in this column some disparaging comments about a certain historical novel she'd read. ''I knew,'' she continued, ''like a bad marriage, that I had made a mistake halfway through the first chapter. I was bored, irritated and actively offended,'' but ''brought up in New England on various strictures of the clean-your-plate school, I did skim it from start to finish with no change of heart.''

Yankee resolve is justly celebrated, but this is over the top. Why subject yourself to an irksome book when so many sublime ones are available? Nevertheless, every reader recognizes the threshold my correspondent has yet to cross: the moment when you decide that you don't have to finish every book you start.


For some, it's like a loss of virginity; you never forget the book that defeated your naïve faith in the contract between an author and his or her reader, the promise that your time and effort, even your irritation, will be fairly repaid. (In my case, it was ''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man''; I had had about enough of Master Dedalus, thank you very much.) For anyone who reads books professionally, that faith dissipated long, long ago, and even the perversely principled stick-to-itiveness that makes a person gut out a book that reminds her of a badly chosen spouse has become a distant memory. Even critics who start out as hungry readers, devouring fat volumes in single, 10-hour sittings, learn to nibble, sampling a chapter at a time from each of the dozens of new books that arrive in the mail every week. It's a warped, unnatural way to read, dictated by uncommon circumstances. ''I now finish no book I start,'' says David Gates, a novelist and critic, ''unless I'm reviewing it. Or if it's wonderful fiction, but I haven't seen a wonderful novel for a long time.''

But surely authors, who aren't responsible for filtering through piles of new releases and who know what it's like to pour years of work into a book that people will pass over with a glance at the cover and the jacket copy, are more generous? Not really. ''I'm very unforgiving,'' says Michael Chabon, the author of ''The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.'' If the book doesn't grab him in a page or two, he's out of there. ''I guess I'm less responsible to books than I should be, but my time for reading is so limited and the competition is so fierce. It's a Darwinian process.'' Being perfectly willing to bail out when the going gets dull is, for many writers, less a matter of lost idealism than an apprehension of mortality. ''As time goes on, I'm more apt to abandon them,'' Diane Johnson, author of ''Le Divorce,'' writes via e-mail. ''I quite often lose books, leave them on buses or whatever,'' which she interprets as her unconscious relieving her of a duty when her conscious mind is playing the martinet.

Even younger writers feel the press of time. Myla Goldberg (''Bee Season'') tells herself that reading a mediocre book ''would mean that I would eventually be on my deathbed having been deprived of the opportunity to read some other book, perhaps one that would have been really fun, or exciting, or even life-changing.'' Chabon gives a book two pages, Goldberg allows it 15 to 50, and a book editor I know says that ''publishing turns you into a person who decides within five pages whether you'll like something or not and who puts it down (whether it's work or personal reading) without one ounce of guilt if the answer is no.'' She added, ''I know someone who swears by nothing more than the first sentence.'' What puts these readers off? The most complained-of quality is ''lyricism,'' the piling on of metaphors, similes and extravagant imagery. Also hated are long passages of description (particularly of weather and geology) and hokey framing devices like ''I remember well the summer I turned 14. . . .'' For the writer, the pitfalls are many, and one imperative rules: ''Your beginning better be just killer,'' Chabon says.

Some might see this as evidence of a culturewide case of literary attention-deficit disorder, but it's hard to justify time wasted in the reading of unloved books. The burden is on the author to prove that what you're holding is something exceptional, and if not in the first few pages, then where? It's also unwise to idealize the passionately committed reading habits of youth; becoming a writer yourself can make you realize how low you once set the bar. ''I had an insatiable appetite for complete narratives,'' says Jonathan Lethem (''The Fortress of Solitude''), remembering the years when he finished every book he started. ''I needed to know what happened. I'd fillet a novel of its story. Now I read more slowly, less to get to the end than for the pleasure of the sentences and paragraphs. Before, it was pure consumer frenzy.''

Others described their need to read to the end of even the worst book in similarly pathological terms: ''an obsession,'' ''a sick sense of loyalty,'' ''masochistic.'' Ayelet Waldman, a novelist (''Daughter's Keeper'') who is married to Michael Chabon, claims to have ruined a family vacation in Hawaii because she refused, with a tenacity her husband found maddening, to jettison a book she loathed. ''The rage that it engendered kept me going,'' she says. ''I have to feel personally betrayed by a book to quit, but sometimes, exactly like some relationships I've had, the betrayal becomes so catastrophic that I keep going back to it.'' Most will persevere with a trying book only if it comes highly recommended. ''It's like dating,'' says Tom Bissell, the author of ''Chasing the Sea.'' ''You need to know if this is serious or just a fling.''

The editor Robert Gottlieb, a prodigious reader, maintains that he never deserts a book, although closer questioning reveals that it takes him quite a bit of ''reading in'' a volume to decide that he's started it. Gottlieb, who says he'll sometimes read an old, forgotten book just because ''I feel sorry for it,'' also believes that he'll get back to the many partly read books in his life eventually, which makes them half-finished, rather than un. The distinction is fine, but useful; by the time fate obliterates the difference, you won't care.

Published: 05 - 09 - 2004 , Late Edition - Final , Section 7 , Column 1 , Page 27

NYTimes.com Review THE LAST WORD; Divorce That Book

BOOK FAIRS 2001-2002

Miami Book Fair 2002
The Miami Book Fair is a bibliophile's mecca, so I had a wonderful time. I couldn't help but notice that the street fair was smaller than last year, which was smaller than the year before, which was smaller than the year before that. Borders hasn't had a booth for two years now. No Books-a-Million either. Waldenbooks had a small booth, and Barnes & Noble was still there, but in considerably smaller quarters than previous years. Lots of indies though, including Books & Books, the originator of the fair, and Murder on Miami Beach - which is becoming Murder on the Beach and moving north to Delray Beach, which is in my neck of the woods, making me a very happy BookBitch.

As usual, there were multiple authors speaking at the same time which forced me to make some tough decisions. Then I ran into a scheduling problem when an event didn't start on time. I waited in line for almost half an hour to see Les Standiford, but by the time they opened the doors and it would have gotten started, it would have been time for me to leave to get to the next panel. That was a heartbreaker, but more on that later.

While wandering around the street fair early Saturday morning, I ran into Robert Mykle, author of Killer 'Cane: The Deadly Hurricane of 1928, which devastated the Florida Everglades. If you liked Perfect Storm or Isaac's Storm, check it out. Then I headed for the first panel of the day. Robert Bausch read from The Gypsy Man, a literary thriller set in Virginia in the late 1950's. John Dufresne was next, and he read from Deep in the Shade of Paradise, which is resting comfortably on my dining room table - at least until Thanksgiving, then all bets are off. This is the pseudo-sequel to Louisiana Power & Light, and I think Publisher's Weekly summed it up best: "Imagining John Irving, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor or Max Shulman (or all of the above at once) on peyote juice only begins to evoke the dimension and energy of the seriocomic fantasies of Dufresne at his freewheeling, frenetic best." Dufresne is an experience not to be missed.

The highlight of the day for me was the last speaker on that panel - Tim O'Brien. He is, in my humble opinion, an American treasure, and one of our greatest living writers. The National Book Award winning Going After Cacciato is my personal favorite, not to slight The Things they Carried and In the Lake by the Woods, all Vietnam War books in one way or another. I am totally in awe of this man's brilliance and talent, and it turns out he is also gracious and funny. It was beautiful to see teenagers asking him questions about his books that they had studied, and to see the patience and care that he expressed in answering them. He was slated to read from his latest novel, July, July, which is about several characters and their personal stories that emerge at a college reunion, except he was told to prepare for a twenty minute reading. Upon arrival at the fair, he was told to keep it to ten minutes, which he felt was inadequate to do justice to his book, so instead he just told us about the book. He also told a very funny story about the inspiration of one of the characters in July, July.

It seems he received a twenty page, handwritten letter from a woman who wrote him the most bizarre story. She said that she had met a man and he told her that he was a writer using the pseudonym Tim O'Brien. He kept up the charade for a very long time, coming up with more excuses and more lies to cover up than he ever bargained for. Eventually they got engaged and were to be married. Every now and then she would question him, because she never saw him write for one thing, but he always had an answer for her. One day she borrowed one of Tim O'Brien's books from the library, and confronted him with the picture. He told her that they were writing partners, and eventually he told her that the partner was gay and they'd had a fight about that, so he signed over all his rights to the name Tim O'Brien to his partner. She kept on believing, until shortly before they were to be married when he broke down and admitted the entire thing had been a lie. She immediately ended the relationship. Eventually she wrote Mr. O'Brien this story, addressing it to "the real Tim O'Brien." Enclosed with her letter was a letter of apology from her former fiancé, which inspired a character in the new novel who likewise gets caught up in a lie.  

An interesting question was raised about the impending war in the Middle East. While stating that he didn't wish to get into politics, Mr. O'Brien also suggested that our fearless leaders put their bodies where there mouths are. All in all, Tim O'Brien was an entertaining and enlightening speaker.

The next panel I went to began with a laugh; Cassandra King read from her new novel, The Sunday Wife. This is a book about a preacher's wife in a small Southern town. She read a hilarious scene about a meeting of church ladies trying to get some "pornographic" novels banned from the high school - books by some famous pornographers like Mark Twain, Joseph Heller and Pat Conroy (who also happens to be the author's husband.)  

Following Ms. King was Mark Dunn, author of Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable, and one of the most creative and original novels I've ever read. He explained the progression of the book, and how difficult it was to write, and how it was even more difficult to find a publisher for it. This is a book written entirely in letters. It's set in a small town whose most famous resident invented the pangram, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." There is a statue erected in his honor, along with the pangram. One day the "Z" falls off, and the town leaders decide that it is some sort of sign, and forbid the residents from using the letter "Z" in writing or in speech. Then another letter falls off. And another. And eventually there are only a handful of letters left that are legal to use, forcing the townspeople who remain to become quite creative in speaking and writing. It was very interesting hearing the letters read aloud. The first letter read was from the night before the "Z" was banned, and he ended with the last letter of the book that was written with the scant half dozen letters that were left, making it most difficult to read aloud, but also pointing out the stark simplicity of his story. I ran into him a little later in the day and we chatted. He was delighted to hear how much I enjoyed his book, and was very personable. His newest book is called Welcome to Higby, and was just selected as a New and Notable book by USA Today, and they have posted an excerpt.

The last author to speak on that panel was Robert Olen Butler. I've never read any of his works, but he has won numerous awards and was an eloquent and amusing speaker. He teaches creative writing at Florida State University, and I truly envy his students. He read from his latest novel, Fair Warning. This book started out as a short story commissioned by Francis Ford Coppola. Apparently Mr. Coppola met Sharon Stone when she was working as an auctioneer for a fundraising event, and was quite taken with her. He commissioned Mr. Butler to write a story about a woman auctioneer, which he did and it was published in Mr. Coppola's literary magazine, Zoetrope. The idea lingered, however, and came to fruition as a full length novel with this book. Every year at the Fair I generally find an author whose work I've never read, but intrigues me, and this year was no exception. I enjoyed the reading Mr. Butler gave, and look forward to exploring all his writing.

After a brief stop at the food court, which was also an abbreviation from previous years, I headed over to see Les Standiford. His newest book is not a mystery, but rather a fascinating look at a small piece of Florida history called Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean. It's a quick read, and one that is most enjoyable. Speaking with Mr. Standiford was Tony Horwitz, author of Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before, which I am dying to read, and Philip Gourevitch, author of A Cold Case, which is a true crime book that I would have liked to have heard about. Unfortunately, due to David Rockefeller running long and the auditorium not being available on time, I had to leave for the next panel. I was also very sorry to miss the only mystery panels of the day with Ridley Pearson (Art of Deception) and Gregg Andrew Hurwitz, who I haven't read, although Do No Harm is in my to-be-read pile, and another one with Karin Slaughter (Kisscut, which I didn't love although I did love her first book, Blindsighted) and Carolina Garcia-Aguilera. There were several mystery authors scheduled to speak on Sunday, but I had tickets to see The Lion King, so I was limited to Saturday only. I really need to figure out how to be in several places at once, and I'll have it all covered.
The last panel of the day was entitled New Fiction, and ended with Robert Clark, author of Love Among the Ruins. He read a wonderful excerpt of this literary novel about young love set in the late 1960's in Minnesota.

The reason I was so determined to see this panel was Leif Enger, author of Peace Like a River, which my reading group will be discussing next week. Leif (whose name rhymes with "safe" - I asked) was a very witty and charming speaker. He has spent eighteen years as a reporter for National Public Television in Minnesota, and told a great story about an Associated Press reporter there. It seemed that this reporter always got the best stories, including one from a memorable 4th of July that Leif just loved. It was a very busy news day, with a horrendous storm destroying a huge chunk of a national park, and various other tragedies. But the story that Leif liked best was about a boy who held on to a firecracker for a second too long - and had his finger blown off. This sort of thing happens pretty much every 4th of July, but the kicker to this story was that the finger was never found. Leif was totally intrigued with that, comparing it to the phantom hitchhiker type stories that have become the stuff of urban legends, and used that story on all his newscasts that day. Except shortly after that story hit the newswire, the AP reporter responsible for it came forward and admitted that he made it up. And shortly after that, he admitted he'd been making up stories for twelve years. It seemed like this was the impetus for Leif to turn his hand to fiction.

Peace Like a River is a gentle, flowing book about a family with all sorts of problems. The protagonist is a young boy named Reuben, who struggles with asthma. Reuben believes his father can perform miracles, and there are touches of magic realism throughout the novel. Reuben has an older brother named Davey, who gets into some serious trouble, and a younger sister named Swede, who I just fell in love with. Swede is a nine year old girl who loves reading the westerns of Zane Grey, and writes beautifully metered cowboy poetry. Leif told us that it took several years to write, and that he wrote it for his family; he has a son with asthma. I am grateful that he got to share it with the rest of the world. I asked him if he had anything he'd like to say to my reading group, and he said to tell them that "every word of it is true."

Ann Packer, author of the NY Times bestselling novel The Dive from Clausen's Pier, was also on this panel. If you've read the book, all I can say is that Ann was exactly like I pictured Carrie, her main character. This is a very interesting book, and is perfect for reading group discussions, and she read quite a long bit of it. Carrie is engaged to Michael, but soon realizes that she's not quite as much in love with him as she had originally thought. Memorial Day weekend finds them on their annual picnic, and Michael dives into the lake. But the water is exceptionally low this year, and he breaks his neck. Carrie stays by his side while he remains comatose, but she knows that if he survives, he will be a quadriplegic. One night she takes off, abandoning him and her responsibilities. It's so easy to judge, but the beauty of this book is that it dramatizes varying viewpoints.
Before heading home, I stopped by the Florida Mystery Writers of America booth. Christine Kling, author of Surface Tension (the book I'm giving away this month) was scheduled to sign books late Saturday afternoon. But when I got there, Joanne Sinchuk (of the aforementioned Murder on the Beach) told me that the fair wouldn't allow her to do the signing because she was scheduled to speak on a panel on Sunday, so she wasn't allowed to do anything else. (And bravo to Ballantine, who managed to get copies of the book to the Fair even though the official publication date wasn't until 11/26.) I was disappointed because I wanted to meet her and tell her how much I enjoyed her book. Now here's the kicker: "Pages" magazine also had a booth at the street fair, and they were giving away the current issue with Scott Turow on the cover. They had a big sign stating that he would be there at 2:30 to do a signing. But Scott Turow was scheduled to speak on a panel on Sunday, just like Christine Kling. Now I don't know if he actually did the signing or not, because at 2:30 I was waiting in line for Les Standiford, but it seems to me if he was able to do it, then she should have been able to do it too. Why would they allow a best-selling author to do what he wants and not let a first time published author who really could use the extra PR not do it (yeah, yeah, never mind.) That's the sort of thing that drives me nuts. I hope somebody can tell me that they made Turow cancel too, and I will feel much better about that.


Broward County Literary Fest 2002

It was my privilege and pleasure to be able to attend this event. Kudos to BYBLOS, the fundraising arm of the Broward County Library System who arranged this Day of Literary Lectures. It was held at the beautiful new library at Nova Southeastern University. This library is unique in that it is believed to be the first such joint venture in the United States between a private institution and a public library system.

The day was divided into thirds, allowing me to see a variety of authors, but sadly forcing me to miss some as well. The morning panel was called "American Dream". The first speaker was John Byrne, co-author along with Jack Welch of JACK: STRAIGHT FROM THE GUT, the best-selling autobiography of the man who runs General Electric. John is a writer for Business Week, and he took a year's sabbatical to write this book. The Wall Street Journal story about the reporter from Harvard Business Review resigning because of her involvement with Jack had just broke and that was the first question put to the author. He danced around it, saying that they had a "relationship of sorts" but negating to specify anything further. If you're not a subscriber to the WSJ, read the TIME.com story about it.

Next up was Homer Hickam, author of THE ROCKET BOYS (renamed October Sky after the film) and his newest book, WE ARE NOT AFRAID. It's an inspirational tome he wrote after 9/11, putting his Coalwood, West Virginia spin on the fears generated since that horrific event.


Up next was the very young and very interesting Ana Menendez, author of the short story collection, "IN CUBA I WAS A GERMAN SHEPHERD" which is the punch line to a joke in the title story. Sorry, you'll have to read the book to get the whole joke!
That panel wound up with Lynn Sherr, the famed ABC correspondent from 20/20, with her new book, AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL. This books tells the history of the song that some people, Ms. Sherr included, believe should be the National Anthem. Ms. Sherr, the apparent queen of understatement, made an impassioned speech about the TV news industry in response to a question about the whole Ted Koppel/David Letterman debacle, indicating that there are some people in management at ABC that are "not very nice."

The next panel I attended was called "Crime Stoppers". This was a tough decision, I had to forego seeing writers like Art Buchwald, Susan Griffin, Frank Deford, Delia Ephron and Jennifer Egan. But the main impetus for my even shlepping down there was to meet George Pelecanos. He spoke eloquently about the problems his city, Washington D.C., faces - the inner city problems, not the ones on Capitol Hill. I was a bit troubled by RIGHT AS RAIN, it had an almost a preachy feel to it at times in dealing with racism and he pulls no punches with the life of the people living in the urban blighted-Marion Berry neighborhoods. But after hearing him speak, I think that is his goal, he wants people to feel uncomfortable as it really gets the point across. He was a very thought-provoking speaker. He told us that his newest book, HELL TO PAY, is based on an actual incident that happened there and the book is dedicated to the little boy that lost his life. This book has been generating amazing reviews (not only from the BookBitch) and lots of publicity. Check out the terrific articles about him in USA Today and the NY Times. And on a more personal note, his pictures do not do him justice, he's a hottie!

Elaine Viets actually opened this panel, and she was very funny. If she ever decides to give up writing humorous suspense, she would do well in stand-up comedy. Her books are set in St. Louis, including her last one called DOC IN THE BOX. In this book she gets to kill off every doctor that ever left her waiting while they finished a round of golf, that didn't return her phone calls, that patronized her when she deemed to ask a question, and, well, you get the idea. She lives in South Florida and says that her next book will be set here as there are only a limited number of unusual story ideas found in St. Louis, while South Florida is an never-ending source! I am looking forward to it.

Phillip Margolin, author of legal thrillers like THE ASSOCIATE and GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN, was very entertaining. I saw him just a few weeks ago at the Martin County Library but he did not repeat himself at all here. He is a very interesting man who still seems amazed by his success. He says that he can't help but think that writing is just a hobby, albeit "the hobby that swallowed" his law practice. He retired from the law to write full time.

Laura Lippman, winner of the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony and Agatha awards, was the other "Crime Stopper" on the panel. Her popular mysteries are set in her hometown of Baltimore. She was an intelligent, engrossing speaker and I look forward to reading all of her "Tess Monaghan" books, starting with BALTIMORE BLUES through the last one, IN A STRANGE CITY. The next book in the series, THE LAST PLACE, comes out in September.

The last panel of the day was called "Below the Mason-Dixon Line". I figured this would be a giant step towards overcoming my prejudice (read: ignorance) against Southern literature. This was a most impressive panel with an eclectic combination of different Southern accents! Robert Inman, author of the wonderfully reviewed CAPTAIN SATURDAY, grew up in Elba, Alabama. He spent most of his working life as a TV journalist in Charlotte, NC, until he retired in 1996 to write full time.  
Robert Morgan, winner of the Oprah lottery with GAP GREEK has a new book out, a sequel set twenty years later entitled THIS ROCK. Morgan is a native of the mountains of North Carolina and according to his publisher is "widely regarded as the poet laureate of Appalachia". He currently teaches English at Cornell University.

Next up was the amazing Kitty Oliver, author of Multicolored Memories of a Black Southern Girl, a native of Jacksonville, Florida. This book is her memoir, and in it she talks about being one of five African-American freshman that integrated the University of Florida (student population: 18,000) as well as being the first African-American journalist at the Miami Herald. She is a good jazz singer, which she demonstrated, and claims to make a mean jambalaya! I was awed by this all around inspiring, talented woman who is currently teaching a class in nonfiction/autobiographical creative writing at Florida Atlantic University.
The last speaker of the day was also the most pivotal for me: Rick Bragg, born and raised in the hills of Alabama and the Pulitzer-prize winning journalist for the NY Times, author of ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTIN' (which is required reading in high schools all over the United States, including my neighborhood) and his newest book, AVA'S MAN. I have literally sold hundreds of copies of ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTIN' but I've never read it. He spoke about his family, (both books are memoirs), and about growing up in the South. Then he quoted the beginning of ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTIN' and simply blew me away.  

At the end of his talk, he asked for questions from the audience. The last one to speak was a woman who stood up and said that she was from NY and never really cared for Southern literature. She told him that a good friend of hers was from Alabama, and over the years had sent her various books but none of them ever really changed her attitude. Until his book.  

"Rick Bragg writes like a man on fire. And All Over but the Shoutin' is a work of art. While reading this book, I fell in love with Rick Bragg's mother, Margaret Bragg, a hundred times. I felt like I was reading one of the prophets in the Old Testament when reading parts of this book. I thought of Melville, I thought of Faulkner. Because I love the English language, I knew I was reading one of the best books I've ever read. By explaining his life to the world, Rick Bragg explained part of my life to me. You feel things in every line this man writes. His sentences bleed on you. I wept when the book ended. I never met Rick Bragg in my life, but I called him up and told him he'd written a masterpiece, and I sent flowers to his mother." --Pat Conroy

After the lecture, I met Rick Bragg and told him that I could be that lady from NY...so he signed my book for me and I am in the process of reading it, a few beautiful, emotional pages at a time. It bears careful reading. The language is mellifluous and the story is spellbinding. I feel most fortunate to have found this book, and this author, and I humbly beg the readers of this site to do likewise. 


BookMania 2002

BookMania is an annual Martin County, Florida tradition and they do a superb job. I wasn't able to spend the entire weekend but I enjoyed a talk by Eileen Goudge and her fourth husband, Sandy Kenyon. The way they met goes into the "truth is stranger than fiction" file. He interviewed her by phone for his radio show, and afterwards she invited him to call again. He did, they dated by phone for a while before actually meeting, and when they finally did it was love at first sight. They recently celebrated their fifth anniversary.

The crime panel discussion was the reason I attended though. The legal thriller maven Phillip Margolin, the veddy British Peter Robinson and the supposedly-reclusive genius Dennis Lehane spent an hour and a half discussing their work and their genre. The panel was led by Scott Eyman, books editor of the Palm Beach Post. One of the fascinating facts revealed by Peter Robinson was that he does not use an outline to write his books, just starts writing and often doesn't know "who done it" until he is three quarters of the way through! He also revealed that he wrote one book that was set in Los Angeles, but it was only published in Canada and is most difficult to find.

On the other hand, Phillip Margolin revealed that he does very extensive outlines, 29 pages long for THE ASSOCIATE and 68 pages long for WILD JUSTICE, which is my personal favorite (and his!)

Dennis Lehane admitted that he had a commercial light at the end of his tunnel while writing SACRED, and it is his least favorite of all his books, while he is most proud of GONE, BABY, GONE and MYSTIC RIVER. Clint Eastwood bought the film rights to MYSTIC RIVER and production is supposed to start at the end of this year. Finally, if you've ever wondered what writers actually read, Dennis highly recommended a mystery called THE BLUE PLACE by Nicola Griffith and THE LAST GOOD KISS by James Crumley. All in all, it was a lovely afternoon.


Miami Book Fair 2001

I'm still basking in the glow of the 18th annual Miami Book Fair. I was thrilled to be able to spend the day there Sunday, November 18, 2001 and I got to hear some great authors speak.  This fair is international in scope; in fact several booths were devoted to consulates of various countries. It lasts a little over a week, with a series of lectures all week culminating in a three day street fair that also encompasses several lectures. The most difficult part is in choosing who to see, as there are usually three or more lectures going on at the same time.  

I couldn't help but notice that there were far fewer booths at the street fair than there have been in the past. Borders was absent, which saddened me. Most of the big publishers had booths, some smaller presses as well, and B&N, Walden and a handful of independents like Books & Books and Murder on Miami Beach. Deals abound; I was able to pick up Leif Enger's book, PEACE LIKE A RIVER, for less than half price. There is something to be said for hitting the fair on the last day! The rep assured me that it was the best book he'd read all year, and I've heard that from a lot of other people who don't have quite as much vested in that statement.

After spending the first couple of hours checking out the booths, it was time for the first lecture of the day. I had to pass up Nicholas Basbanes (PATIENCE & FORTITUDE), Michael Pollan (BOTANY OF DESIRE) and a poetry reading, among others, to see a panel discussion entitled "Dark and Dangerous" featuring Tim Dorsey, T. Jefferson Parker and James Grippando. Tim was the opening speaker and was hilarious, admitting that at times he felt like he was "morphing into Carrot Top". He gets my vote for the guy I'd most like to go drinking with, but I digress. He read from his upcoming book TRIGGERFISH TWIST (May 2002), a prequel to FLORIDA ROADKILL which I adored. I think Dorsey's books can best be summarized as humor with dead bodies.  

I've never read T. Jefferson Parker, but he was very interesting. His books are set in southern California, which is his home. He spoke about where he got his ideas from and told a great story about his latest, SILENT JOE. He said he saw a man on the boardwalk, holding a baby. The man's face was horribly disfigured, but that infant, his daughter, was looking at him with such unconditional love that it started his wheels spinning. From Booklist: "...Parker offers another compelling take on one of his favorite themes: damaged souls forced to confront their own inner demons."

James Grippando gave an enlightening and moving talk about one of the results of the ongoing civil war in Columbia; the staggering number of kidnappings. A KING'S RANSOM was inspired by his prodigious research into this nightmare. A few years ago I read FOUND MONEY, which was excellent and this new one sounds even better.
The next hour found another tough decision. I skipped Stephen Ambrose (THE WILD BLUE), and David Rackoff (FRAUD) to go to a lecture entitled "Powerful Voices" featuring James Hall, Peter Moore Smith, and a man I hold in the highest esteem possible, Andrew Vachss. 

James Hall opened the lecture with bird calls and monkey sounds. There is more to this man that meets the eye! He then proceeded to read us a most interesting piece he had written for the NY Times, A Fireball Too Far. He also read a bit from his upcoming thriller, BLACKWATER SOUND (January 2002), and it sounded terrific. I am looking forward to reading it. 
 
Next up was Peter Moore Smith. I'd not heard of him or his book, Raveling, which is his first novel. He didn't speak much but spent way too much time reading from his book, to the point of being rude I'm sorry to say. 

Andrew Vachss. I will try not to gush but consider yourself warned. It's not just his writing, which is so compelling and gritty and worthy enough of praise. He is a lawyer with a unique clientele; he only represents children, who generally don't have much in the way of disposable income. The books pave the way for Andrew Vachss to perform his life's work; to try and help children.  

When I first read him I checked out his website. His bio is completely overwhelming. I had so many questions for him, but I was too intimidated to even write him. When I found out he was going to be at the fair, I knew I would go hear his lecture, but I didn't even bother to bring his books to be signed. I am far from shy, but I didn't think I would have enough nerve to actually talk to him.  
I haven't read his newest thriller, PAIN MANAGEMENT, but I will. I am reading him in order and doing it slowly, with lots of fluff in between. He said he was unable to read his book because the legal disclaimers from the publisher were so numerous, due to the content, that if he read them all he wouldn't have time to read the book anyway. So instead, he spoke a bit about the abused children in this country and how he got involved in trying to help them. In that brief speech he was so passionate and so eloquent that I found myself crying at times, yet he also made me laugh. He was simply mesmerizing.  

Apparently there are people who attend these things simply for the autographs, for when we came out of the lecture there was already a huge line of people waiting. I left to have lunch. But sometimes fate has a way of stepping in. As I stepped off the escalator on my way to attend the next lecture, there he was, just having finished up, and I practically walked right into him. I figured it was meant to be so I babbled something about being totally in awe of his work or some such thing. He was gracious and charming and oh-so-sexy and I am still floating...
I grabbed a quick lunch (the food is surprisingly good and varied) and headed over to the last lecture of the day for me. The 3:00 hour was the worst kind of torture, choosing between Dave Barry (DAVE BARRY HITS BELOW THE BELTWAY) with Jeffrey Toobin (TOO CLOSE TO CALL), Edna Buchanan (YOU ONLY DIE TWICE) with Laura Lippman (IN A STRANGE CITY) or the panel I headed for called "Stellar Fiction", with Chip Kidd, Mark Salzman and Rosario Ferre.

I walked in during Ms. Ferre's reading of her book, FLIGHT OF THE SWAN. I chose this particular lecture because of Chip Kidd. Regarded as the world's foremost book jacket designer, this was his first attempt to create the inside of a book. Some of his more famous covers include Jurassic Park, Geek Love, American Rhapsody, and the super-hero coffee table book Batman Collected, among many, many others. His terrific novel THE CHEESE MONKEYS was very different and the most creatively designed novel I've ever seen. He read one of my favorite parts, and read it well, dramatically, bringing all his quirky characters to life.  

Last up was Mark Salzman. I had heard of him, but hadn't read any of his books. He was my find of the day; brilliant, achingly funny and totally fascinating. He is exceedingly accomplished and experienced.

I ran out immediately and bought his newest book, LYING AWAKE. It's about a Carmelite nun who has a form of temporal-lobe epilepsy that causes her to have visions of God. His meticulous research and his way with words had me hooked. And in a delicious bit of irony, it appears that Chip Kidd designed the cover!
I came home and got my hands on his first book, a Pulitzer prize nominated nonfiction memoir of his years in China called IRON AND SILK, which I'm following up with LOST IN PLACE: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia, another memoir.  
All in all, a truly memorable day.  

Who reads the book of love?
Book group for singles has everything but the guys
By Ron Fletcher, [Boston] Globe Correspondent | May 16, 2004

Single readers with no interest in being left on a shelf gathered on a recent weeknight at Village Books to make a solitary pleasure social.

"A customer had heard about a book club we were sponsoring that was made up entirely of men," said Annie Bauman, the co-owner of the store. "She said she wanted in.

"It turned out that that club was a closed one -- and made up of married men. So, we started talking about a club for singles. The response was overwhelming. Here we are."

Thirty- and forty-somethings browsed among the book-lined walls, enjoying red wine, cheese, and the softly playing music of the English duo Everything But the Girl. The tune was tinged with irony, though, when the 7 p.m. start time ticked by and the shop filled with everyone but the guys.

But Bauman had anticipated what she called "a slanted ratio" and had come up with a proposal: a $5 store gift certificate for any woman who brought along a male friend.

"It's common practice to offer an incentive when seeking some sort of gender balance," said Bauman. "One customer told me if she had a guy to bring then she wouldn't be here."

Of the 30 book lovers who pre-registered for the event, about half made this May 5 opening night: 12 women and 3 guys, each arriving of his own volition.

Bauman assured the slanted ratio that there would be better gender balance at the next meeting.

"This night isn't so much about meeting someone else," said Bauman, a wife and mother-to-be, "but a way of expanding a network of single people, of people at a similar stage in their lives."

The single women took the news in stride. Asked to put a price on the value of male company, Janis Khorsi of Roslindale laughed.

"You might have to offer $25 to get a guy into a bookstore these days," said the Oregon native and WGBH employee.

Sporting nametags bearing the title of the last book they read, singles scanned the shelves, lauding one author and pooh-poohing another. A woman who had recently read "Le Divorce" chatted with a guy claiming to have read "Sophie's Choice."

Elsewhere women turned to women to joke about that rare species: the single male reader.

"I'm not surprised that it's mostly women," a recent reader of "I Don't Know How She Does It" told "Life of Pi." "My ex-husband didn't read. He did not read. I couldn't share anything with him. He was into TV. I could never again be with someone who doesn't want to read."

I wanted to tell her that men do read, but that many prefer to do so the same way George Thorogood took his drink and Henry David Thoreau took his walks: alone.

I wanted to tell her how after the opening game of my hockey season last fall, Chris Hobson, a teammate not above an on-ice donnybrook, pulled me aside at T's Pub and spoke in hushed tones.

"Hey, Ronnie Boy," began Hobby. "What do you think about starting a book club this year? We could invite the Crawdaddy. You know, just the three of us. You name the book."

I agreed sotto voce and told him I'd have a title for him by our next game. We clinked beer glasses.

The book club, alas, remained a "pints dream," despite the fact that each of us voiced good intentions and purchased Ian McEwan's "Atonement," a title I went on to read with another all-male book club: the roomful of high school juniors I teach.

"Fear of commitment" provides a convenient but facile explanation for why three guys couldn't orchestrate the reading and discussion of something that takes time, a novel.

Yet I don't imagine that the club would've happened had we chosen a short story -- or a haiku. Seems that informality and spontaneity trump A Plan when it comes to guys and books. Between hands in poker or while suiting up for a hockey tilt, guys have been known to mention an author's work, yet they seem to need the freedom to digress, to punctuate the serious with the trivial, talk of metaphors with talk of models.

But I digress. Back at the Village Books's cheese and crackers, one intrepid man's stock seemed to be plummeting as he extolled the virtues of a book on serial killers to an incredulous stranger.

Bauman unwittingly came to the rescue of that pair when she asked the group to listen to a talk on building the perfect book club. The advice eerily paralleled a successful relationship, with its lauding of chemistry, commitment, and communication.

"Be passionate, speak honestly," advised Bauman, "but come to the table capable of defending your emotions one way or another. That leads to discussion and that makes this thing work."

After the talk, Khorsi took the books-romance analogy a step further, describing her last date as "definitely non-fiction," someone she said she would title, "I, Narcissus."

"My last date had four pints in two hours," added Ms. Le Divorce, who declined to give her name. "It was like a date with Charles Bukowski -- without the poetry."

Ed Langley, one of the trinity of men -- and not a fan of serial killer prose -- was unaware of the going rate of his Y chromosome.

"Five dollars?" he said, with a laugh. "That's very undervalued."

By the exit, Khorsi bundled up for the cool evening. Despite the night's lack of knights, she remained optimistic about the next meeting. "You never know who will be there," she said. "Could be Mr. Right -- holding a book."


Boston.com / News / Local / Mass. / Who reads the book of love?

Author profile: Jim Born
By Lona O'Connor, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Sunday, May 16, 2004

If there was an instant when the proverbial light bulb went on, when the idea for writing a novel was born, then that light would have been a flashlight in an unmarked police car, in the middle of the night.

During endless hours of surveillance as a federal drug officer, Jim Born found plenty of time to read by flashlight: Tom Clancy, Larry McMurtry, James Michener, history books.

Finally, he looked up from his reading and said to himself, "I think I'll write something."

It illuminated the moment when Jim Born, agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, began a 14-year morph into James O. Born, crime fiction writer.

Now, according to those who know, he's headed up the charts -- with a bullet.

Born's first novel, Walking Money, is due next month from Putnam.

A West Palm Beach native with 18 years in law enforcement, Born is keeping his day job in Fort Lauderdale as supervisor of special agents at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. But his future looks brighter than a police spotlight.

"Jim Born is the real thing," wrote Elmore Leonard in a blurb for the cover of Walking Money.

It's a rare compliment from the author of Get Shorty and dozens of other popular crime novels, according to Peter Rubie, Born's agent.

"Elmore does not give (book jacket) quotes," Rubie said. "If you can find more than two, I'd be surprised. But he knew this guy's work and felt satisfied that it was of a certain quality."

It's true that Leonard has a soft spot for Born.

"I'm so happy he stuck with it and made it," Leonard said, calling from Beverly Hills, where he was visiting the set of Be Cool, the latest movie based on one of his novels. Leonard said he helped Born with punctuation and dialogue when Born was starting out. "But he had that perspicacity to stick to it, and go right back to work," Leonard said.

Born, 43, who lives in suburban Lake Worth, drew on his prolific experience in high-profile crime cases, collected over his years working for the DEA and the FDLE.

His career highlights read like a list of instances where truth is stranger than fiction: He was a police diver in the Everglades after the 1996 ValuJet crash. He was part of the hunt for Andrew Cunanan, who shot designer Gianni Versace on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion. He worked on the anthrax investigation in Boca Raton and went undercover to investigate the Ku Klux Klan.

It was all fodder for Walking Money. Set in Miami, the novel is titled for a satchelful of ill-gotten cash that keeps moving from hand to dishonest hand -- with bad things befalling just about everyone who handles it. Somehow Bill Tasker, the detective hero of the tale, ends up framed for murder.

Neil Nyren, Born's editor, thinks he has what it takes to build a following in the world of mystery book readers.

"He's very smart about what he needs to be doing and he's eager to learn," said Nyren, who liked Born's work so well that he first gave him a two-book deal, then made it a four-book deal.

Even taking his real-life experiences into account, Born's arrival in the big time makes success sound infuriatingly easy. He is a self-taught writer who doesn't even suffer from writer's block. He's ahead of schedule on his next novel and fleshing out outlines for three more.

"When I'm running or at the gym or playing tennis with the kids, I'm working out where the story is going," he said.

Born, whose father was the late Palm Beach County Circuit Judge John Born, sees himself as someone who just keeps plugging away. He's a guy with two black belts in karate who likes to work and is determined to succeed.

"That's the cop side of him," said his friend Mike Sheehan, a Florida Highway Patrol lieutenant. "You want success, you don't want failure. We're a prideful bunch."

Leonard met Born through a mutual friend, the late Circuit Judge Marvin Mounts, the model for Leonard's fictional Maximum Bob. A stickler for realism, Leonard and his researcher, Greg Sutter, started calling Born for answers to detailed questions.

For Out of Sight, a novel and later a movie about a Florida prison jailbreak, Born's knowledge of the 1993 prison escape at the Glades Correctional Institution in Belle Glade came in handy. For Get Shorty, Sutter wanted to know how someone could sneak a gun into an airport.

After Born decided to try writing, he began making notes when he had time. He squirreled away details, such as the little old lady on the porch at the retirement home for greyhounds west of the Palm Beach International Airport. She showed up in Born's still-unpublished novel, Snitch.

He started writing Snitch when his wife, Donna, was pregnant with their son, John, 14 years ago. After John was born in 1989, he wrote late at night or during his son's nap time.

He learned as he wrote. Sutter suggested how to structure his first draft into chapters and scenes. He kept getting rejection letters, but the rejections got more encouraging as time passed. He hired a professional editor to polish the book.

"Jim could take criticism, and I'm good at criticizing," Sutter said. "I went at it like a chain saw. I told him, 'Hang in there, it'll happen.' (When he got a publishing deal), we were giddy for him."

When Born finished Walking Money, it got a warmer reception from agents than Snitch. About a year ago, he received a phone call from New York agent Peter Rubie. After years of rejection letters, this was another light-bulb moment.

"It immediately dawned on me that nobody had ever called me to reject me," said Born.

Within weeks, Born signed a deal with Putnam, and shortly thereafter started showing up at mystery writers' conventions, making friends with writers, asking questions. Meanwhile, Sutter recommended him for a job providing technical assistance for the short-lived cop show, Karen Sisco, based on the Jennifer Lopez character in Out of Sight.

Born's characters are often crusty and politically incorrect. Their adventures are likewise salted with the gallows humor of law enforcement.

"In this business, you just constantly look at the lighter side," said Sheehan. "It keeps us mentally on track."

Born is breezy and relaxed, married to his FSU college sweetheart, a family man living on a lake in a placid suburban neighborhood.

"My life is boring because I got everything I wanted," he said.

But as publicists line up book signings and interviews for the launch of Walking Money, Born senses he is on the cusp of something very different.

His second-biggest thrill so far was finding the book mentioned on a Japanese mystery fans' Web site. The best, though, was seeing his book cover advertised on the Wal-Mart Web site.

"Come on, I'm a redneck from Palm Beach County," he joked. "Wal-Mart is the Holy Grail."

Being on the cusp also has its humbling moments. A radio interviewer accidentally called him "James Hall" (another Florida mystery writer) on the air. And his wife jokes, "Hemingway, will you take out the garbage?"

There has been no big celebration, no big changes. He did indulge in a truck -- a used, gray, Dodge Dakota pickup he bought from a friend. It took some cajoling for him give up his 11-year-old truck.

"We had been begging him to get a new truck," said his wife. "The one he had was in such bad shape, the neighbors didn't want to borrow it."

Donna is already planning a summer "pickup book tour," day trips to book signings around Florida, with John and daughter, Emily, 10.

"They need to know that Dad plugged away for 14 years before he met with any success," she said. "He just stuck with it."



Author profile: Jim Born: "Moore Lets Bush Be Star of 'Fahrenheit'"

BookMania 2003 and
The Spinach Philosophy of Book Selection is my term for the way books are selected at some libraries. For instance, when The Sexual Life of Catherine M. by Catherine Millet, translated by Adriana Hunter, was first offered up for purchase, I recommended it not because it was well reviewed, because it was not. I recommended it because of all the buzz - I knew there would be a demand for it. My supervisor placed it on her order, but the branch manager squashed it. Not one of the 14 branches in the Palm Beach County Library system ordered it, and I can understand why she didn't want to be the first. But we have a contract with a vendor that automatically ships us a set number of copies of any book that lands on the NY Times best seller list. Sure enough, the Millet book hit two weeks after publication and eventually hit the library shelves.

Unfortunately, we don't have that automatic ordering process in place for the NY Times Children's best seller list. A book has been on that list for quite some time now which the Palm Beach County Library System refuses to purchase. Why? They don't like the title. This particular book has been very well reviewed and has been cited as a great book to bring "reluctant readers" to the table. The title of this oh-so-offensive children's book? Walter the Farting Dog, by William Kotzwinkle. Which brings me to my rant on the Spinach Philosophy.

The Spinach Philosophy works this way: we don't provide the public with what it wants, we buy what is good for them. We decide what is good for them, and even more importantly, what is bad for them, then we avoid the bad no matter what. No matter that this is a public library, supported entirely by tax dollars that are paid by the public we serve. They might love French fries, but everyone knows they are bad for you, so instead, we offer you spinach. Have a lovely new reissue of the Black Stallion, a fine piece of literature to be sure, but does it hold the same appeal as the aforementioned Farting Dog book? Maybe. But maybe not. Why not offer both spinach and French fries? Anne of Green Gables and the Farting Dog can happily coexist on the same shelves. They do in bookstores, where the bottom line is providing what the public wants or hey, go out of business. There are no stores selling only spinach. It's the fries, baby, that the public craves, and if they are paying, give it to them.

If the Spinach Philosophy was used for only children's books it would be bad enough, and if it was only used as a prurient-meter for books for so-called grown ups, that would also be pretty bad. But it's also poorly reviewed books or books that haven't been reviewed by an authoritative source [Booklist, Library Journal.] I understand that libraries have to have some standards - I'm certainly not complaining about the lack of Hustler magazines or the latest in sado-masochist erotic fantasy, not that there's anything wrong with that. It just seems to me that a public library should carry what the public it serves wants, and if they want to read a poorly reviewed book or one with an offensive title, they should be able to do so. Sure, there has to be a line drawn somewhere, but personally, I don't think that Walter the Farting Dog is the proper place for that line.


BookMania 2003

Hats off to Martin County. If you've never been there, picture a small beach town, surrounded by other small beach towns that spread into sprawling suburbs as you travel west; so small that the Interstate had a gap through Martin County until just a few years ago. Yet somehow they managed to build a beautiful library with a large auditorium that has become this wonderful meeting place for authors and their fans. I was unable to attend opening night, which featured Elmore Leonard, but I did spend all day Saturday there, and the lineup was terrific.  

The first panel I attended was called "Women Who Craft the Crimes" and featured Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, Christine Kling and Virginia Swift, and was moderated by Scott Eyman, books editor of the Palm Beach Post. Carolina Garcia-Aguilera is the author of the fabulous Lupe Solano mystery series, the most recent one being Bitter Sugar. Her last book was One Hot Summer, (reviewed here) a complete departure for her into the contemporary romance genre, and it was a very successful foray indeed. There was some Miami politics sprinkled throughout that book, and as anyone who lives in Miami can tell you, it's very difficult to write about the area and not get into the politics. Ms. Garcia-Aguilera told me she was crucified for her politics, but I say you go, girl. If you have the forum and something to say, don't let the critics stop you. She also spoke about how reading was her escape from reality when she was a child. She was born in Cuba, and grew up during the revolution there, and then in exile before moving to Miami.  

Ms. Garcia-Aguilera was a private investigator in Miami for many years, and still does some investigative work now and then, which lends real credence to her Lupe Solano character. If you haven't read them, Lupe is a classic private eye with a feminist twist - she's a loner, but wears high heels. She's sexy, but not romantic, for which she has also been criticized; I'm afraid the old double standard is still alive and well among critics and readers. PI's have been having casual sex forever, but when it's the woman who wants it that way, tongues wag (no pun intended.) I am very excited about her next book, a stand alone thriller about Cubans in Las Vegas, called Luck of the Draw. It is scheduled for release in June.

Virginia Swift is the author of Brown-Eyed Girl and her newest book, Bad Company. My friend Judy just raved about her books, but I haven't gotten to them yet. (Judy, when are you going to start reviewing for me?!?) Ms. Swift, or as she is also known in real life, Dr. Virginia Scharff, is a history professor at the University of New Mexico, and has published several books in her area of expertise, women in the American West. She put herself through school as a honky-tonk singer in Laramie, Wyoming and in the oddest of coincidences, the main character of her series is a history professor who sings in a honky-tonk in, you guessed it, Laramie. Ms. Swift told us that historians are very leery of writing anything that is not true, so it was a bit of a stretch for her to write fiction. But nevertheless she'd been starting novels for years and had a drawer full of "false starts" as she called them, until one day she decided it was time to clean them out. She threw them all away, and that night she had a dream about a character she had written who told her "you can't get rid of us that easily." That character became "Mustang" Sally Adler (for the car, not the horse) and thus was born Brown-Eyed Girl, an homage to one of her favorite authors, Carl Hiaasen. Ms. Swift was very bright, funny and self-deprecating, and I would love to take a class with her. But instead, I'll settle for reading her novels. Soon.

Rounding out this panel was Christine Kling. Her first novel, Surface Tension, made my favorite books of the year list for 2002 (review here) and I gave away several copies in a contest, so it was a real pleasure to finally get to meet her. She mentioned how much fun it was for her to be on the other side of the table after so many years as a mystery fan. Ms. Kling's favorite author is John D. MacDonald and his Travis McGee character, and she based her book and her character on him. She said she loved how Travis always got the girl in the end, and then they would go off to the Keys. So in her book, her main character, Seychelle Sullivan, gets the hunky guy in the end and they go off to the Keys. Sweet! The next book in the series is called Cross Current, and has a political twist with Haitian immigration playing into the story.

Next on the agenda was a talk by S. V. Date, author of Black Sunshine, a politically inspired humorous thriller about the race for Governor. Date has been a journalist in Florida for many years, and is currently working in Tallahassee for the Palm Beach Post. He talked about politics in Florida, and his first hand knowledge of the insanity that goes on at the capital made for a very humorous talk indeed. His writing turned to fiction several years ago when Date and his wife took a year off from work and sailed through the Mediterranean and the Caribbean on a 31' cutter. He started writing his first novel, Final Orbit, about a murder on a space shuttle and the subsequent cover-up by NASA (which stands for "Never A Straight Answer") on that sailing trip. Date's novels are most often compared to Carl Hiaasen's.
Barnes & Noble is the bookseller for BookMania and they donate a percentage of their sales to the library. They also brought in Jill Lamar, the Manager and Editor of their "Discover Great New Writers" program. This is a wonderful program that helps promotes undiscovered authors. Booksellers from throughout the chain volunteer to read several books and make their recommendations. There are annual Discover awards as well, which for 2002 were judged by several prominent authors, most of whom were previously "discovered" by B&N themselves, including Anita Shreve and Susan Orlean. Ms. Lamar set up and moderated a panel with six eclectic and very talented new authors of such diverse work as two novels, a collection of short stories, two memoirs and a nonfiction adventure story.  

Jill Bialosky is an editor at W. W. Norton, a published poet but was promoting her first novel, House Under Snow, which was inspired by her image of the house and her characters, the mother and her daughters that were trapped within it. Ms. Bialosky is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and she credits the workshop with helping her find her own voice. She made a lot of friends there who still critique her work.

Loraine Despres has been writing for TV for years, her claim to fame being the "Who Shot J. R." episode of "Dallas." She started feeling the need for a change, and turned her considerable writing talent to a novel, a wickedly funny Southern charmer called The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc. Sissy lives her life based on the Southern Belle's Handbook (soon to be published as well) which includes much of the savvy sayings Ms. Despres heard growing up Louisiana. Ms. Despres told a story that her grandfather liked to tell about a man who walks into a bar and sees his wife with another man. He turns around, goes across the street to the hardware store, buys a gun, goes back into the bar and shoots his wife and her lover dead. The moral of the story, she was told, was "no guns on credit." Words to live by.   
Cynthia Kaplan is an actress who grew up in Weston, Connecticut. Her memoir is actually a collection of essays entitled Why I'm Like This: True Stories. When she decided to write, she thought about the most interesting character she could think of to write about - herself. She says she is "profoundly, deeply connected to the neurotic workings of my own brain." Her stories are an accurate representation of a middle-class Jewish girl, yet they are universal. She writes about the secrets in life that people think about but don't talk about. Her essays range from dealing with Alzheimer's to the "one girl at camp whom everyone hated" to waiting tables to finding a new therapist. She's funny and bright and sensitive - hearing another author speak brought her to tears, which she blamed on "pregnant hormones," but I teared up too and I haven't had a pregnant hormone for more than ten years. The man who caused the tears was Bob Smith.

Bob Smith is the author of Hamlet's Dresser: A Memoir. At 61, he is a first time published author and the self proclaimed "geriatric new kid" of this group. Mr. Smith started a Shakespeare appreciation class for senior citizens. The first class has 7 students, all over 85 years old. Then next class had 25 students, then 100 and by the end of the first year there were 2000 seniors showing up to discuss Shakespeare's work. The New York Times sent a reporter out to investigate, and it ended up as a front page story. Scribners approached him and asked him to write a book, but Mr. Smith doesn't type, so when he met with them he just read from hand written pages. They got him a typist and he slowly began writing his memoir. It started, as most memoirs do, in childhood. He grew up in Stratford, Connecticut and Shakespeare was not only his escape, but also his guide. Mr. Smith has a sister who is profoundly retarded, and he took care of her. But eventually she was institutionalized and he never saw her again. He told Scribner that the book wouldn't be finished until he saw his sister again, which he eventually did. You have to love a book about how books saved a life.

Tim Zimmermann is the author of The Race: The First Non-Stop, Round the World, No-Holds-Barred Sailing Competition, an adventure story in the style of Junger's The Perfect Storm. He talked about the type of people that get involved in a race like that - eccentric, to say the least - willing to only change their underwear three times in a year. He also addressed the "write what you know" school of thought; he likes to write about what he doesn't know, and learn something in the process. That hasn't helped him find another topic to write about though. He needs to feel passionate enough about something to commit to writing a book about it, so meanwhile he continues to write articles for Outside, Sports Illustrated and Sailing magazines.

The last panelist was the short story writer, and the most commercially successful author of the group, (which if you know anything at all about the publishing business, has to be one of the strangest sentences ever written.) Adam Haslett is the author of You Are Not a Stranger Here, which rocketed up the New York Times bestseller list after Jonathan Franzen picked it for the Today Show book club. The stories are an "emotional autobiography, not a literal" one. His writing has been influenced by William Trevor, one of my favorite short story writers. Mr. Haslett is also a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and is currently in his last year of law school at Yale. He plans on writing a novel after he takes his law boards. While waiting in line to meet him, the woman behind me, an attorney, remarked that "he doesn't look like a lawyer, he looks like a judge." He looks like a writer to me, and I am looking forward to reading more words from this remarkably gifted young man.

Ask the Author was the next panel, featuring James Grippando and Stephen Horn, both of them lawyers now writing legal thrillers. Stephen Horn had a huge success with his first novel, In Her Defense, which was started from a first line and a last line. He just filled in the middle and hit the NY Times bestseller list. When he began thinking about what he'd like to write next, he was inspired by a couple of images. One was of a woman falling from a building in the Bronx (Mr. Horn grew up in the Bronx in the 1950s) and the other was of a man going to work in an overcoat with grass and dirt stains that he got from sitting by the grave of a little girl. Those images formed the basis of his new book, Law of Gravity. Horn, a Washington D. C. attorney, will be bringing back his character, Washington D. C. attorney Frank O'Connell, the Vietnam vet (Horn served with the 101st Airborne in Vietnam) from In Her Defense for his next book.  

James Grippando has written several books including some of my favorites; The Pardon, Found Money and the superb A King's Ransom. Truth be told, every book the man has written has been terrific, he is one gifted storyteller. He is a real planner, working from an outline that he describes as a 30 page "Reader's Digest" version of the book. His books are always rich with character and story, and there is good reason for that. Mr. Grippando feels that a good story needs compelling characters that the reader gets to know, using the analogy of riding a roller coaster versus taking a very fast car ride with someone you'd like to hang around with - he opts for the latter. That analogy works for me - I won't go on a roller coaster but fast driving is, well, never mind. His most recent book, Beyond Suspicion, brought back Miami defense attorney Jack Swyteck, a character from his first book, The Pardon. Grippando is stretching in a new direction by writing a series after writing stand alones. He is contracted to write three more Swyteck books, and the next one, Last to Die, will be published in July. With this new committment, Mr. Grippando was forced to finally give up his law practice. The law's loss is the reader's gain.

The last author I saw spoke to a standing room only crowd. The fabulous Edna Buchanan, wearing her trademark "I Love Miami" necklace, gave a funny, insightful and often moving talk centered around her theme - it's "not easy to write fiction in a place that is stranger." Example: the young police officer who walked into a crime scene where the victim had just been decapitated, and the perpetrator threw the head at him. His involuntary response? He threw it back. She talked about how Florida is "a gun shaped state" and living here often feels like living in an episode of the Twilight Zone - with Rod Serling as Governor. She talked about her early inspiration, her 7th grade English teacher, Mrs. Tunis, who encouraged little Edna with her writing inspirations. She started sending stories out to magazines, and brought Mrs. Tunis her first rejection letter. Mrs. Tunis continued to encourage her and asked her student to dedicate her first book to her.

Unfortunately, she died the following year, but Ms. Buchanan never forgot her or her request, and her first book, her memoir, was dedicated to her teacher. 
Ms. Buchanan spent twenty years as a journalist covering the police beat in Miami, winning the Pulitzer Prize in the process. During the drug years in the 1980s, she had one memorable year that gave her over 650 murders to write about. "I take evil seriously," she said, and that's why she loves writing fiction. In her books, "the good guys win and the bad guys get what they deserve, unlike real life." Her alter-ego, Britt Montero, is helping the good guys win again in her newest novel, The Ice Maiden. It was very pleasant hour with the "Queen of Crime" and a wonderful day at BookMania.

Killer business: Murder on the Beach bookstore

By Scott Eyman, Palm Beach Post Books Editor
Sunday, May 16, 2004

There are those who think that running a bookstore must be romantic and relaxing: wearing your smoking jacket, sitting in an armchair with pipe clenched firmly in teeth, indulging in civilized badinage with like-minded customers as you peruse leather-bound copies of Proust.

Once you've actually done it, you find out it's a lot closer to laboring on septic tanks, but by the time you learn the truth, the illusions of youth can never be recaptured.

Joanne Sinchuk's Murder on the Beach has been in Delray Beach's Pineapple Grove section for a year and a half now, after seven years in Aventura, and there are times when she pines for her old job as a certified public accountant.

Well, not really. But being a CPA was certainly less work.

"Before I opened," she says with a sigh, "I did the right thing and wrote out a business plan. And when I look at it now, I laugh at how much I didn't know."

There are 60 mystery bookstores scattered throughout the country, but Sinchuk's is the only one in Florida. Her store carries somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 titles, in hardcover and paperback.

Because Murder on the Beach is a specialized store, it has a specialized clientele. "I have customers from Miami Beach who drive up here," she says. "I have customers from all over the world on the Internet."

Sinchuk is an independent, and can't offer the deep discounts of the chain stores, so she has to be nimble and concentrate on obscurities and figure out who the Next Big Thing will be before anybody else does.

The customers at a mystery bookstore also have different levels of sophistication. For instance, Sinchuk has yet to sell her first copy of John Grisham's latest thriller, although it has been out for several months.

"My clientele is more intellectual, and more serious about the form. I sell very few books to people who don't like to read, which I think describes a lot of the mysteries that make the bestseller list."

Sinchuk owes it all to Agatha Christie, with whom she fell in love while growing up in Bridgeport, Conn. "I made up a list of all of her novels, and I would check them off as I read them."

When she was working as a CPA in New York City, she would regularly shop at Otto Penzler's Mystery Bookstore, and would indulge herself by thinking how much fun it would be to run a similar place.

Finally taking the plunge, she opened her store in Aventura, and did well, but the increase in the Hispanic population made the survival of a English-language bookstore problematic. It was time to head north.

"I didn't see anything I liked in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, but a customer told me about Delray Beach, and I loved it immediately."

Fully 30 percent of Sinchuk's business derives from mail order and Internet, largely autographed copies of books set in Florida, which seems to have joined Los Angeles as a primary setting for the genre. (Sinchuk sold more copies of Fort Lauderdale author Jonathon King's The Blue Edge of Midnight online than she did in her store.)

Because of her sales of autographed books by mail and online, author appearances are particularly important. Sinchuk regularly nabs such stars as Michael Connelly, who appears at the store tonight, and John Sandford. Her main target for a future signing is Alexander McCall Smith, the author of the popular series about a detective agency set in Botswana.

The market for mysteries has metastasized in the past 15 years. There are knitting mysteries, animal mysteries, cooking mysteries and hairdresser mysteries to go up against the usual private detectives, cops and bounty hunters. There's even a mystery series set in Cleveland, which would seem to limit your audience.

"I'm not even sure Cleveland was the worst choice," says Sinchuk. "Elaine Viets had a series set in St. Louis, but nobody outside of St. Louis wants to read about St. Louis. So she started setting stuff in Fort Lauderdale, and her career took off."

While independent bookstores all over America have gone belly up in the past 10 years, niche stores like Murder on the Beach have managed to survive even though, to an outsider, it would seem hard to fail in a business where you can return all your unsold inventory for full credit.

But as Sinchuk points out: "If I sell a book for $20, I paid $14 for it. And how many other businesses are there where the retailer has no control over price?"

For the future, Sinchuk sees no particular signs of weakening in the genre. Her business is headed up, even though about 50 percent comes from snowbirds, and she has the usual summer downdraft.

She sees the best new writers as being Jonathon King, the Irish writer John Connolly and the mother-daughter team that goes by the name P.J. Tracy.

Divorced with no children, Sinchuk remains an avid consumer of mysteries, although it's not what she reads for relaxation anymore.

"I read chick-lit," she says, "especially English chick-lit. Meg Cabot is my current favorite. You can polish a book off in one night, and it's fun."

Killer business: Murder on the Beach bookstore

A Tax Dodger Meets the Man

By Nancy McKeon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 7, 2004; Page F01

Some people define themselves by their job, some by their hobbies, yet others by their family relationships. Josh Kornbluth and Richard Yancey are two very different men who can be defined, at least in part, by the Internal Revenue code.

Kornbluth is a West Coast writer/performer who, in his twenties, worked office jobs to pay the rent. At some point he dropped out of The System and, even though he temped for a tax attorney, didn't file tax returns for seven years.

Yancey spent those same years in Florida, and he too bounced around from job to job, trying to be a writer. He wound up -- until four months ago -- a revenue officer for the IRS, spending his days going after people like Kornbluth.

Tax dodger, meet tax collector.

Kornbluth was in Washington last week performing his monologue "Love and Taxes" at Arena Stage (through March 14). Yancey was in town promoting his new book, "Confessions of a Tax Collector" (HarperCollins). Here, in this edited transcript, they interview each other.

Kornbluth: Your book is really a story about becoming a grown-up.

Yancey: Yeah, a coming-of-age story. The IRS just happens to be where I come of age.

Kornbluth: I picked up on that right away because, in my show, we're actually telling a very similar story. Although we are, like, point-counterpoint, as we're being set up here. But as you describe yourself, you're pretty much a slacker. [Grins]

Yancey: Oh, yeah. I was a ne'er-do-well in the classic sense. If there was something to fail at, I could achieve that failure. By the time I got into the Service I was 28 and I didn't know what I was doing with my life. I didn't have a life, I didn't know what I was doing.

Kornbluth: You were the antithesis of what you were about to become. It's as if the car thief became the repo man.

So what was the job like?

Yancey: It was a lot of things. In some ways it was a terrific job. We had fun, especially in the early '90s before Congress ruined everything and put all these inhibitions on the IRS. [Laughter] We had a blast, and every day was different.

Yancey tells of a married couple -- apparently tax protesters -- who owed about $20,000 after failing to file for three years. They had no real estate in their names. Their 1989 truck had a large note on it. Only a 1968 Chevrolet Chevette had no lien against it. No way was Yancey going to get the government's $20,000 by seizing that.

Yancey: That car's basically a little box on wheels. But I thought, I gotta close the case, so I'll go out and get the Chevette. I knew where he worked, I knew he probably drove his car to work, and so I go there and was cruising his parking lot, three or four times. I can't find a red Chevette anywhere. Then I stop and I see this For Sale sign on a car. And it's a cherry-red '68 Corvette, not Chevette. It's a classic, in mint condition, worth back then, what, $70,000? $80,000? Within 10 minutes I had a tow truck there. The guy comes running out of his office, and the tow truck driver says, "If he's got a gun, you're my human shield. Stand there!" Anyway, we hooked it up, we took it in. I didn't get to sell it, though -- the guy came up with the money.

It kind of illustrates the real lesson I learned in the IRS.

Kornbluth: Which is?

Yancey: Which is how to control and manipulate people, which really didn't have anything to do with the power of the federal law that I had behind me. It had to do with learning how to push people's buttons. What I learned was, First you find what they love and then you take it. If you can't find what they love, find what they fear and exploit it.

Kornbluth: In your book, the [IRS interviewer] asks you, Why do people pay their taxes? You give the "right" answer, which is due to their patriotic duty. And he says, No, it's fear. Is that where it comes down?

Yancey: That's my experience. I can't tell you how many people, when I knocked on their door, said, "Are you here to arrest me?" And when everything was done, they would say, "I can't believe a person from the IRS is, like, a human being."

But when you were going through this ordeal, how were the IRS people in general? Were they the typical, you know, pocket protectors?

Kornbluth: I didn't actually -- what I did was, I called. First, I avoided.

Yancey: That's common.

Kornbluth: . At first I was working almost entirely at jobs that had withholding tax. I filed, and I got refunds, but then someone told me I was supposed to itemize, because I was also writing freelance. And I couldn't: I looked around and everything would look like a deduction [laughter] and I didn't know how to deal with it. Not only that, but I couldn't find things -- under socks, or KFC boxes.

Yancey: That sounds just like me. Oh, yeah, I'm a terrible organizer. I can't keep track of papers -- no, I was good at work. When I had to be, I was.

Kornbluth: Yeah, I recognized a fellow spirit. And I was around the age that you're talking about too -- I was in my twenties then. So anyway, I just fell out of the system. I had an appointment with a tax person, a preparer, and on April 15 I was scrambling and then I just overloaded and I got really sleepy --

Yancey: Sleepy?

Kornbluth: Yeah, sleepy. And I needed to lie down on my receipts, and when I woke up it was the 16th. Just like that. And I just couldn't -- it was late -- and then, nothing happened.

Yancey: Nothing happened?

Kornbluth: Nothing happened. And so I continued to let nothing happen for seven years, until I was a secretary for a great tax attorney. And I was doing a show about, in part, how I hadn't done my taxes for seven years, and he said, "That was a very funny joke, Josh," and I said, "Well, it wasn't a joke," and he flipped out and sent me to a tax lawyer. And that's why I started dealing with it and going inside the system.

I wasn't trying to get away with anything. The tax lawyer said that if I had filed I would've gotten refunds. But then I made a little money, for me a lot of money, $50,000 over two years 'cause I had movie options for my monologues. And then, instead of another refund I owed $27,000. So, at first I just wasn't thinking about it. Then I was thinking about it, it was on my mind all the time. I had been filing for years and then I stopped. So I eventually called the IRS, and they were really nice. I was on hold a lot, but I will say that, the music on hold, I found very relaxing.

Yancey: [Laughing] Really?

Kornbluth: But as I put in my Social Security number, my heart was pounding and I thought, "What is that person going to say, like, 'You're going to jail' ?" But at the same time, I really had the inkling -- and I'd be curious from your end -- the inkling of, I owe this. [Laughter]

Was it your experience, or did you have any connection with whether the money you were being sent to collect was a fair assessment of these people?

Yancey: I never got into that unless they brought it up.

Kornbluth: That wasn't your job, right? Your job is like, "Rick, go, get that money."

Yancey: No one ever called me -- well, some CPAs would call me by my first name, but most people wouldn't. And I didn't even use my real name.

Kornbluth: Oh, that's right! So, that's something I wondered -- so the woman I talked to on the phone was named Mrs. Williams --

Yancey: [to laughter] Yeah, right!

Kornbluth: I suspected that maybe it wasn't. So I was right about that?

Yancey: Well, on my level they don't release "this percentage of employees are using pseudonyms," but I made a personal choice and we're allowed to do it. I mean, I worked with people like you, but I worked with some real bad guys. There are those who openly flouted the system, who were, like, I know I owe this money and I don't care, I'm just not going to pay you. And plus questioning the legitimacy of the tax laws, just in general --

Kornbluth: Which, from my reading, is stuff that's thrown out whenever it gets to court, right?

Yancey: Yeah, but that doesn't stop some people --

Kornbluth: Well, there's the Flat Earth Society people too.

Yancey addresses some of the people he dealt with in his career, many of whom seemed never to have had anything and yet wound up owing the IRS thousands of dollars.

Yancey: Most of it came about through self-employment, where people are basically living beyond their means, they're not thinking when they get a check that part of the money belongs to the government.

One of the nice things about being a wage slave is that your employer is going to pay half of your Social Security tax. When you're self-employed, like you and I are, you're responsible for the whole thing.

Kornbluth: Yeah, independent contractors, the self-employed, need to put the money aside. People like us, who are not by nature responsible, not dedicated to details, need to learn that. That's what I did. I didn't attend to it, I didn't put the money aside, and then I owed it, and then it got bigger and bigger. But that's not the IRS's fault.

But the tax attorney was great. And I picked up a lot of the language, like the shotgun provision and the classical corporation ruling and the reverse double dummy maneuver.

Yancey: What's that?

Kornbluth: It had something to do with, you set up these sort of companies that are sort of -- well, I'm not the person to explain it. Nonetheless, it's a maneuver, it's legal, or apparently, and it's a great name I like to use in my show.

Yancey: I guess a lot of professions are like that. You have your own language, your own culture. And I get this pang [about the IRS] that I'm going to miss it. Sometimes, I feel, I need to be in the know.

Sandy [his wife] is still in the Service, so she can talk about some of these things. I mean, she can't give names, but for instance, she's training five new people and that helped me bring up the feelings that I had when I was in training that I talk about in the book, these feelings of being overwhelmed and learning a whole new language. I mean, you're pulling your hair out thinking, "I'm never gonna get this," but then you have an epiphany, something clicked at one point.

And all of a sudden you find yourself rattling off sections of the [tax] code. And, to get back to language for a second, in the IRS we don't call taxes taxes. They're not taxes, they're modules.

Kornbluth: So you're not really dealing with tax evaders. You deal with module evaders.

Yancey: Right, module dodgers.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company


A Tax Dodger Meets the Man (washingtonpost.com)

Books and the single girl

BY AILEEN JACOBSON
STAFF WRITER

May 11, 2004

The last time single women were celebrated in fiction, they were called New Women, says Elaine Showalter, the recently retired chairwoman of Princeton's English department. That was when the 19th century became the 20th.

Now the 20th has turned into the 21st century, and a genre concentrating on the lives, loves, adventures and misadventures of unwed females is once again booming. This time around, it's called Chick Lit.

Many of its best-selling books are wrapped in pink covers featuring swirly letters and curvy legs ending in stiletto heels - though recent trends include an expansion of the color palette.

"Aqua is the new pink," says Sessalee Hensley, Barnes & Noble's fiction buyer, adding that lime green has also entered the mix. So has a host of subgenres, from widow lit (young woman looks again) to bridezilla lit (young woman gets man) to lad lit (sensitive guy looks for Ms. Right) to hen lit (for the more mature woman, who may conclude chick isn't such a bad label after all). "Where does it stop?" asks Brad Parsons, a senior editor at Amazon.com. "The umbrella is getting bigger and bigger."

Did the women's movement ever happen?

"To feel that every piece of literature has to empower women to come out on top, well - what I write is just real life, about those days when you aren't empowered and winning corporate wars or whatever. You're losing your pantyhose and you're lusting after a bag you can't afford. I mean, there's room for both," says author Sophie Kinsella, 34, best- known for her amusing trio of novels known as the "Shopaholic" series.

Her current bestseller, "Can You Keep a Secret?," is also to become a movie starring Kate Hudson. The book - which starts with a young woman blurting out, during a bumpy plane ride, her most embarrassing secrets to a handsome stranger later revealed as her company's chief executive - comes wrapped in retro pink.

Beach reading season

It's one of a recent beach- weather-ready cluster of high- profile entries in the genre, which, most observers agree, jump-started with Helen Fielding's 1998 "Bridget Jones's Diary," was bolstered by TV's "Sex and the City" and has swelled to at least 240 new novels a year, according to Charlotte Abbott, book news editor of Publishers Weekly. Five mainstream publishers have established imprints specializing in chick lit, she says, and they're "now reaching full steam, so that's pumping a lot of books into the market." Other publishers make occasional forays.

Authors have mixed feelings about the grouping and the term "chick lit."

"I think a man might have invented it. I don't think girls would label themselves that way," says Plum Sykes, 34, author of the current bestseller "Bergdorf Blondes" - about the haute world of a Manhattan party-girl narrator who calls herself Moi, her best friend, a fictional department store heiress, and their pals, who get their tresses dyed every 13 days at the Bergdorf family store. (Publishing experts think chick lit was first applied to the popular genre in England, where it's easily as popular as in the United States.)

Sykes, a Vogue contributing editor, fashion celebrity and London-born Oxford graduate, prefers to call her first novel a social comedy, in the manner of "Breakfast at Tiffany's." She also likes the fashion-conscious label "chic lit," as one magazine dubbed it. She did research, she says, to reflect accurately the lifestyles and lingo of Park Avenue princesses: ana for anorexic or perfect, A.T.M. for rich boyfriend, M.I.T. for mogul in training, and M.T.M. for married to mogul, better than the previous two.

"I feel that most chick lit, unfortunately, is about depressed girls eating lots of chocolate," Sykes says over a plate of one sliced apple and one sliced orange at a trendy West Village restaurant, though she admires Fielding and Allison Pearson, author of "I Don't Know How She Does It." On the other hand, she says, "It's great if it helps to sell the books" by getting them to "that huge market that Helen Fielding created sort of single-handedly."

Marian Keyes, 40, another popular author whose seventh novel, "The Other Side of the Story" (aqua cover), debuted two weeks ago and is expected to become a bestseller, defines a different divide, speaking by phone from her home in Ireland prior to her American tour.

"I think that the term is meant to be pejorative, to put women down: Oh, you silly little women with your silly little concerns in your silly little books. But chick lit authors for the first time are helping post- feminist women navigate this world, trying to be the best friend, have a job, have a thin body, have the shiniest hair. For the first time, those conflicting concerns are being addressed, and with humor. The term has made it easier to denigrate these books, not address their substance."

Her newest book tells the tangled tale of three women involved in publishing and love affairs. "The whole career and relationship conflict is very real," she says. "These women are looking for balance, and confused by the demands forced on them."

Funny isn't easy

Both Keyes, whose first novel was published in 1993 (before "Bridget Jones" turned scattered prose into a genre), and Kinsella, a former financial journalist and mother of two, point out that turning out good, funny books isn't easy. Kinsella, in fact, wrote several well-regarded novels under her real name, Madeleine Wickham, before combining her middle name and mother's maiden name into a new moniker, so as not to confuse her readers when she switched styles, she says.

"These books never get reviewed in the Times [of London], but I've put as much, if not more, time into them, and consider them as good, if not better," than her previous novels, says Kinsella over lunch at a midtown hotel during her recent extensive American tour. Her chick lit books take "months of planning. Plots really need to be worked out. It doesn't just sort of fall off the pen."

Showalter, Princeton professor emeritus and author, admires the work of Kinsella, Keyes and Princeton grad Jennifer Weiner. (Weiner's "Good in Bed," about an overweight young woman, is being developed for a series by HBO, while her second book, "In Her Shoes," about two sisters, is being made into a movie starring Toni Collette, Cameron Diaz and Shirley MacLaine. Her third book, "Little Earthquakes," due in September, has just been purchased by Universal.) Showalter plans to read Sykes' book: "I read Vogue. I don't see myself as above any of this."

On the other hand, Showalter - who contributed an essay on lad lit for a 2002 Oxford University Press book, "On Modern British Fiction" - says she thinks chick lit is developing in two directions, one thoughtful and the other commercial, such as Miramax's commissioning of a chick lit novel by Kristen Gore, Al Gore's 26-year-old daughter, to be published in September. "They were looking for a D.C. Bridget. It's just like marketing Barbie dolls - surgeon Barbie, beach Barbie."

However, she adds, "With some of these writers, people will look back in a century and think, this is the way it was for young women then. Some will be ephemeral and lost. Under the guise of this rubric, some of these women are writing really fine work about what women face in these times." She thinks some are writing work "as intelligent and insightful" as Doris Lessing and Margaret Drabble, though lighter in tone. The New Women literature of a century ago, she adds, was also more serious, and sometimes written by men, including H.G. Wells and George Gissing.

The 'mother chick'

One writer who has been called the "mother of chick lit" has a decidedly different view from Showalter's. Erica Jong, speaking up via e-mail, is scathing: "Chick lit is nothing more than the contemporary version of the 'How to Get Married Novel' invented by Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen - and done much better by them (needless to say)."

Her landmark "Fear of Flying," she says, "details the disappointments of marriage and the search for freedom and individuality, while Chick Lit is a retro form that details the search for and nabbing of a husband, any husband." Today's 20- and 30-somethings, she says, "are looking for the opposite of what their mothers looked for. Their mothers sought freedom; they seek slavery. They want The Ring, The White Wedding, The Bugaboo Frog Stroller - and hey - let them have it all." They'll come around as they age, she predicts.

Jong's view is "a narrow-minded description of the genre," says Margaret Marbury, executive editor of Harlequin's Red Dress Ink, the first U.S. imprint dedicated to chick lit when it launched in November 2001. "These are coming-of-age stories, finding out who you are, where you want to go," she says. Finding Mr. Right is part of that, she adds, but so are such themes as getting a more meaningful job, dealing with family and perhaps never finding someone to marry.

"One of the most powerful things about this literature is that it can hold up a mirror and make you feel you're not alone.... These books don't trivialize women's problems." The often-pink covers featuring "body elements or shoes or women's underwear" signal the humor and fun inside the books, she says, and also aid bookstore visitors seeking this type of novel to "make your purchases and get out of there."

New author opportunities

Red Dress now publishes three books a month (culled from 200 submissions each month, many through the company's Web site): one "traditional" single-girl chick lit, one internally called "Red Dress grows up" (for readers older than 40) and the third a "wild card" - perhaps multicultural, mommy, lad or young widow lit.

In October, another division of Harlequin (yes, the romance publisher) will launch a chick lit series "for modern Christian women." The first offering, Judy Baer's "The Whitney Chronicles," features on its pink cover the bottom half of a woman with her skirt covering her knees and her heels more sensible than stiletto. It's about a 30-year-old looking for her Mr. Right, a "fabulous, single, Christian man."

"Another thing chick lit has really provided," says author Cara Lockwood, "is that it has given opportunity to a lot of young women writers." Lockwood's second book, "Pink Slip Party" ("When you lose your job, can your mind be far behind?" the cover asks), has just been published by Downtown Press, an imprint of Pocket Books, which is part of Simon & Schuster, devoted to chick lit. A former journalist who now works in the dean's office of Northwestern University School of Communications, she hasn't given up her day job. She's working on book three, which is "inspired by my mixed-race background," Japanese and Caucasian, "but it's still chick lit," a label she doesn't mind.

"I think it's great.... It's another place women can go to find things that are meaningful to them." But she does think it "unfair" that books that appeal to women often are shown less respect than those that appeal largely to men, such as science fiction.

Perhaps a name change is in order? Carrie Feron, executive editor of Avon Trade (tagline: "... because every bag deserves a great book!"), says her HarperCollins imprint is trying to recast the genre it publishes as metro chic. "We just feel happier saying it ourselves." Almost three years old, Avon publishes two to three books a month, she says, and is getting more diverse. Kim Wong Keltner's "The Dim Sum of All Things" recounts the adventures of a 25-year-old "Chinese-American wage-slave" who lusts after a "white devil" in her office. July brings the debut of "Goddess for Hire" by Indian-American Sonia Singh.

Trade paperbacks are preferred over hardcovers by many chick-lit publishers, she says, because they're more affordable for avid readers, the right size for toting to the beach, and "more attractive" than pulpier mass market paperbacks.

That hasn't stopped Hyperion from going to hardcover with several chick-lit titles, including the recent "P.S. I Love You," a young-widow novel by Cecelia Ahern, the 22-year-old daughter of the Irish prime minister. Ahern has another book coming out in 2005, says vice president and publisher Ellen Archer, as does "Sex and the City" author Candace Bushnell, whose more recent "Trading Up" is about to make its paperback debut. (Also coming in paperback for this summer, from a different publisher: "The Devil Wears Prada," Lauren Weisberger's skewering of her former boss, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, along with its spawn: a host of new assistant lit books, aka underling lit.)

Archer sees Bushnell's books as "social satire," a label that she also applies to her company's July novel, "Gotham Diaries," by Tonya Lewis Lee, wife of Spike Lee, and Crystal McCrary Anthony, wife of former Knicks player and ESPN commentator Greg Anthony (who also co-authored with Rita Ewing, ex-wife of Patrick Ewing, Avon's "Homecourt Advantage").

"Gotham Diaries" is being touted as "an exclusive peek into the world of the super-rich, super-connected African- Americans." Also in an upscale African-American niche is Putnam's new "The Accidental Diva," in which TeenPeople beauty director Tia Williams focuses on an African-American beauty editor of a top, white-oriented fashion magazine.

Barnes & Noble fiction buyer Hensley keeps an eye both on trends and on TV and movie releases - the second "Bridget Jones," she notes, has been postponed - because she has to make sure store shelves are stocked properly. TV's "Sex and the City" and "Friends" boosted the whole genre, she says: "Once people found there are books written like that, they came back." And now that both shows are over, "what can they do but read?"

The genre's evolution

Chick lit is evolving in several ways. Not only is it expanding toward older readers (her summer pick in this category is the upcoming "This Side of Married," by Rachel Pastan) and teens, but it's also building a healthy back list. When readers discover a writer they like, she says, they go back to her previous work. The bestselling back list authors, she says, are Kinsella, Keyes, Fielding (whose "Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination" debuts next month) and two more Brits, Wendy Holden and Anna Maxted.

Amazon's Parsons says much of chick lit is "guilty pleasure ... commercial, disposable stuff," while other books are more literary. Among books he'd place in the latter slot are Elizabeth Robinson's "The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters" and Rachel Cline's "What to Keep" (both of which show a leaping young girl on their covers), and two June books, Jenny McPhee's "No Ordinary Matter" and Bonnie Marson's "Sleeping with Schubert." The Marson book, he thinks, will appeal to "chick lit and classical music fans," especially since it has "a really sharp cover, a drawing of a naked woman playing piano from behind, a bust of Schubert and Manhattan in the background."

While some authors may be "the last to embrace" the term chick lit, he says, "it shows no signs of going away." Adds Hensley: "The main thing is that, despite being called chick lit, the books are really good."

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