Publishers in bloom: Smaller companies are flowering with new voices, new books

by John Mark Eberhart

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

2 April 2008

In any given year, nine out of every 10 books I see probably come from a New York City publishing house.

That doesn’t mean they’re all good. But those presses (Random House, Simon & Schuster and so forth) have tremendous resources, including troops of editors and battalions of publicists.

Gathering titles for this story, though, I kept coming across interesting offerings from the smaller outfits (Minnesota’s Milkweed Editions and Graywolf Press, university publishers and Missouri’s own Unbridled Press), the kind of presses who get it all done with perhaps a dozen people instead of hundreds.

So here are some spring titles from independents and the New York giants. Unless indicated, titles are available now.

WEST OF THE HUDSON

“Jackalope Dreams” by Mary Clearman Blew (University of Nebraska Press; $24.95)
When you smack a student, you usually get fired, even if the rotten kid deserves it. Corey Henry did that, and now she’s no longer a teacher. In this debut novel, Blew, author of “All but the Waltz: A Memoir of Five Generations of a Montana Family,” tells the story of a Montana woman grappling with Old West prejudices and traditions as she says goodbye to teaching and aspires to become a painter.

Blew knows how to fuse the rugged with the delicate - some readers may be reminded of “Plainsong” author Kent Haruf’s no-nonsense approach. Consider the opening: “She’s what, in her hate fifties, and that’s the kind estimate,” Blew writes of her disgraced schoolmarm. “Truth is, she feels older and she knows she looks older. ... She’s been facing the weather too long, she’s got a temper like a bad windstorm, and she’s too old to be starting over.” Flinty stuff.

“The Guide to Kansas Birds and Birding Hot Spots,” by Bob Gress and Pete Janzen (University Press of Kansas; $19.95)
Two Kansas birders put their heads together to produce this excellent guide. Kansas’ location as a migratory corridor means that hundreds of bird species can be found in the state - though not all the time. The photographs are lovely, and the text tells you where and when you can expect to see specimens like the little blue heron and the American white pelican.

The co-authors have solid credentials; Gress is director of Wichita’s Great Plains Nature Center, and Janzen is the author of “The Birds of Sedgwick County and Cheney Reservoir.” The organization is categorical - owls, warblers, songbirds and so forth. At the back is a list of “Kansas Birding Hotspots” - did you know more than 200 bird species have been spotted in Johnson County’s Shawnee Mission Park? At 354 pages, this one’s too chunky for a pocket but perfect for a knapsack.

“A Summer of Birds: John James Audobon at Oakley House,” by Danny Heitman (Louisiana State University Press; $26.95)
Everything is right except the price, a bit steep for such a slender volume. Heitman, a columnist at the Baton Rouge Advocate, focuses on summer 1821, which Audobon spent at Oakley Plantation upriver from New Orleans. Hired to teach drawing to the owners’ daughter, the ornithologist found plenty of time to develop his own craft: the study and pictorial representation of North American birds.

The book is admirable for its simple adherence to journalistic integrity: No imagined details here, no hot air. Heitman patiently explains what brought Audobon to serve as a tutor (simply put, he needed the money to help fund the studies that would lead to his landmark Birds of America). The artwork, including some of the 32 pieces Audobon painted that summer, is secondary to the text but well-represented. If you ever find yourself near St. Francisville, La., drop in on Oakley; it’s part of the Audobon State Historic Site. Book publishes in April.

“Hallelujah Blackout,” by Alex Lemon (Milkweed Editions; $15)
This Minneapolis author, not yet 30, has been dealing with vision disturbances and other effects of having had brain surgery. Lemon suffered a series of strokes or “stroke-like events” starting when he was 18 that caused bleeding in his brain. He’s doing much better now, but doctors tell him it could happen again. That sense of menace hangs over his work yet does not drown it.

Much like Ted Kooser, whose verse deepened during and after his battle with tongue cancer, Lemon finds artistic benefit in medical duress. In poems such as “Boomerang” and “It’s Always Late Where You Are,” he grapples with loneliness and anger but does not whine. The language is suitably raw, the poems expansive - which leads to my only criticism: This book is twice as long as Lemon’s previous one, 2006’s “Mosquito.” I miss the crispness but concede this is a man with a lot on his (literally) troubled mind.

“Another World Instead: The Early Poems of William Stafford, 1937-1947,” edited by Fred Marchant (Graywolf Press; $24)
Stafford was one of the greatest poets ever to come out of Kansas; later in life he served in the post that is now known as U.S. poet laureate. He wrote simply, brilliantly; much of his work reflected life in the middle of the country. Not all these proto-poems live up to his later work; writers, if they’re lucky, do get better. But in verses such as “Women of Kansas,” Stafford’s voice is already true: “Women in that world fluttered between houses, / Wore shawls.”

“Confessions of a Former Child: A Therapist’s Memoir,” by Daniel J. Tomasulo (Graywolf Press; $16)
Tomasulo, a licensed clinical therapist with a doctorate in psychology, practices in Red Bank, N.J., but that doesn’t mean he has always been a paragon of mental health. As a kid, he thought foods with seeds would get him pregnant and refused to consume them. These days he’s a lot saner, but as the book’s witty prose reveals, doctors and therapists are human, with foibles of their own. Instead of focusing on his patients, Tomasulo observes his own life to reveal how the individual psyche develops (or fails to) in the sometimes warfare like context of family dynamics. Available April 29.

“After Hours at the Almost Home,” by Tara Yellen (Unbridled Books; $14.95)
Just out from Unbridled is this debut novel set in a place called the Almost Home Bar and Grill. Kansas City Chiefs fans will have to get past this: The bar is in Denver and the Broncos are in the Super Bowl. If you can deal, though, so can Yellen - the book asks the question, “How dangerous is restaurant love?” And, in general, it opens the kitchen door and reveals the lives of those who cook and serve. Yellen writes from experience; she really has waited tables. Now, can we get fries with that?

FROM NYC

“The Sister,” by Poppy Adams (Alfred A. Knopf; $23.95)
From Random House’s highly respected “borzoi” imprint comes a debut novel by a London woman about two sisters who reunite after a separation of 50 years. They’re matrons now, women well past middle age, and though they are siblings they barely know each other. Needless to say, things do not go smoothly. The prose is kind of fussy, but in a very appealing, amiable way. Look for it June 17.

“Humpty Dumpty in Oakland,” by Philip K. Dick (Tor; $24.95)
If you’re looking for more science fiction from the late Philip K. Dick, you’ll have to look elsewhere. But it would be a shame to miss this. The author of “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” (which became the film “Blade Runner") penned this realistic novel more than half a century ago.

It involves Al Miller, “a self-proclaimed nobody, a used-car salesman with a lot full of junkers.” Miller is about to find out that there are worse things in life than being a nobody. We all know that “easy money” rarely is, but it’s a lesson worth reading about again. Published in England in the 1980s, the book finally sees print in Dick’s homeland.

“Submarine," by Joe Dunthorne (Random House; $22)
Sex, vegetarianism, sex, parents, sex, being 14 ... sex. That’s what Oliver Tate, a Welsh boy, thinks about - various subjects, but always sex. Of course, that’s what most boys that age think about. It’s Joe Dunthorne’s gift that he has the skills to make Oliver’s story fresh. Extremely fresh. This one is not for the squeamish, but the open-minded will be rewarded with the debut novel from a London author probably destined to be compared with Mark Haddon and Roddy Doyle.

“Shakedown," by Joel Goldman (Pinnacle Books; $6.99)
Well, at least in this section I get to write about a Kansas City fellow who got himself published by a New York press. Goldman has done well, producing several suspense books over the last few years that have gotten good notices. This one is no exception. Publishers Weekly already has praised the “surefooted plotting.” A KC drug dealer is murdered, and the FBI agent trying to deal with the case is dealing with a physical malady of his own.

Here’s why Kansas City mystery lovers should put “Shakedown” on their nightstands: Goldman, a “nuthin’ fancy” kind of writer, tells a story at a breakneck pace - but better yet, you can trust him to get our geographical details right: “Quindaro, a rundown quadrant in northeast Kansas City, Kansas.” Or his observation that KCK, despite its history as “the disrespected punch line to jokes told by people living south in Johnson County,” has “turned the corner” with its NASCAR track and attendant development.

“Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life,” by John Sellers (Simon & Schuster; $23)
Sellers reminds me of another John - John Cusack, or at least the obsessive music maven he portrayed in the film “High Fidelity.” The author lived out his adolescence in the brash, noisy 1980s, when the post-punk apocalypse was pushing aside disco, thanks to bands such as Sonic Youth, the Smiths and New Order. Sellers wears his adolescent angst on his sleeve, and his passion sweeps the reader into his jagged little world.

The book is no mere collection of essays or critical overview of the music. It’s an in-your-face, this-is-how-it-hit-me memoir that reads like a novel: “A partial list of things music has made me do: fly overseas at considerable expense to see a live performance by a band I no longer liked, nurture a crush on a goth chick way out of my league, nurture a crush on an alternachick way out of my league, write a love letter to a German woman made up entirely of lyrics from my favorite synth band.” Bravo to him for admitting he liked now-uncool bands like Duran Duran. Demerits to him for all the danged footnotes, which makes “Perfect” imperfect but still hilariously compelling.