Book Reviews, The Publishing Business, The Sun, The Moon, The Stars

The Washington Post gives Simplify a somewhat mixed review in this Sunday's Book World:

By contrast, the guys in Tod Goldberg's Simplify (OV Books; paperback, $14.99) are too busy reeling from various blows -- terminally ill fathers, suicidal sisters, lost brothers -- to reinvent themselves. Many of these stories slide off in surreal directions as they map their characters' psychic turmoil. In "Comeback Special," a man whose wife has left him for his best friend finds that a photo of Elvis (from his 1968 comeback concert) cries blood and even changes costumes. The ensuing media circus helps the story maintain its amusing tone, but it's not grounded enough in the man's life to have much effect on the reader.

Goldberg takes similar risks in other stories, with mixed results. The narrator of "The Distance Between Us," who slowly reveals that his misunderstood brother was a serial killer, is genuinely affecting in his grief, but the premise ends up feeling far-fetched.

Goldberg's best stories are told in retrospect, as if the narrators need psychic distance to fashion their memories in the most potent form. My favorite is "The Living End," a haunting account of the summer of 1973, when the narrator's older brother returns from Vietnam with strange scrapes and bruises; the story becomes a mystery that involves the abduction of a Native American girl across the street. This story has a stable nuclear family at its center -- not stable enough, however, to stave off the enormous forces that conspire to destroy its children.

Not a bad review. Not a great review. But a review no less, which is always appreciated, especially since the book has been out now for 6 months, so this comes as something of a surprise.

The interesting aspect of this review, which I suspect will be the last major review the book receives (it was originally scheduled to run in January, but the week it was slated also turned out to be the week A Million Little Pieces came under scrutiny, so it was bumped), is that of all my books, this one received -- by far -- the most mainstream press coverage. I find this interesting for a number of reasons:

1. Fake Liar Cheat was accompanied by a 30 second commercial on MTV, was (and remains) stocked in almost every bookstore and had a fairly large first printing. Kirkus & PW both reviewed, one favorably, one disastrously. The only major newspaper to review the book was the LA Times. Several weeklies reviewed it, but by and large the regular print media avoided it. My publisher, Pocket Books, sent out a gazillion review copies, I sent out a gazillion review copies, along with t-shirt and other promo swag, toured the country for the better part of six months and, while I sold a good number of books, never really saw any sort of substantial press.

2. Living Dead Girl was accompanied by, well, nothing. Soho typically doesn't advertise too much, but the book received strong advance praise from all the usual suspects -- Kirkus, PW, Booklist, Library Journal -- and then was reviewed by...no one. Not a single newspaper in America reviewed Living Dead Girl. Not one. It did end up getting reviews in several magazines, like Pages, for instance, and websites and mystery magazines, and several mystery bookstores really championed it, but the newspapers avoided it like it was, well, Fake Liar Cheat. When it was announced as a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, I thought for sure the paperback would get some ink. I was wrong. This was very surprising as Soho traditionally get excellent review coverage for their books. But by the same token, they didn't spend any money trying to get me out into the world -- I spent about a month on the road, mostly in the West, and paid for everything myself, getting little in the way of publicity for my efforts.

3. Simplify was published by OV Books, which is the book imprint of the literary journal Other Voices. The book is distributed by the University of Illinois Press, a significantly smaller press than Pocket or Soho. Simplify received advanced praise from...no one. Kirkus, PW, Booklist and Library Journal all passed on reviewing it, which was, well, very upsetting as those outlets are the primary source for library sales and pre-orders of books, which is a pretty substantial part of the sales one can expect. Especially since Simplify was the inaugural volume for OV, I thought that this did not bode well. Then, rather suddenly, the book began getting reviews in all the places who'd ignored both Fake Liar Cheat & Living Dead Girl, with significant reviews and press showing up in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post (prior to this review, they did an interview with me & Pam Houston), LA Weekly, Chicago Reader, TimeOut Chicago, Poets & Writers, New York Journal-News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, all sorts of places.  What makes this so odd, of course, is that of the three books, Simplify had the smallest print run and the least amount of editorial clout -- it was the first book for the press, which means, unlike with Pocket & Soho, not much of an expectation for quality was present -- and the advertising budget was pretty small.

So how is it that the smallest, least commercial book I've written has received the most attention? One of the differences was that OV sent me on the road and supported me while I was out there, getting me booked into good stores in the right cities and, generally, right around times reviews were showing up. They also made a huge online push, getting the book into the hands of bloggers which, I have to believe, accounted for some of the buzz that got the book into the mainstream press.  (After the book had been out for only two weeks, it was already in its second printing, which is pretty significant.) I'd like to think part of it might be because of Living Dead Girl as well -- despite the lack of reviews, it did end up on a lot of "best of" lists -- and maybe some of it has to do with having a higher profile now than in the past, but neither of those can be proven empirically.

Short story collections are notoriously tough sells, both literally and figuratively, and so I find this all very interesting in a business sense and a creative sense. Can I expect that my next novel will receive the welcome of my short stories, or will it be more of the same? You'll know when I do.

Comments

[Bill Peschel]

It is a surprise to see so much attention paid to a book of short stories. I remember a Dorothy Parker review in which she saw a Hemingway volume receive the "ahh, it's just a bunch of short stories" treatment by a customer.

If I was a betting man, I'd wager you'll get more review attention next time, after the 'Simplify' experience.

[Darla]

The blogging helped. I'd never have come across Simplify otherwise, and even if I had, I'd have thought "literary fiction, short stories--it's bound to be pretentious crap." I'd have been wrong, of course, but I'd never have known.

Could it also be because it's a collection of very readable short stories that can touch readers on a number of levels? IOW, that's it's good? (yes, that's a pollyanna viewpoint, and I do know that quality and the publishing business are only coincidentally related--still, it's a nice thought)

I'm glad to hear about all the publicity--hopefully that translates to getting the book into more readers' hands and to more attention for your next novel.

[Dean]

I sometimes wonder if the short story is set to make a bit of a comeback. Time was, there were lots of them around. There were whole magazines devoted to them. They still exist, of course, but they are fewer, and those that survive are struggling.

Perhaps the path that Simplify has taken has more to do with the fact that it's a third book than anything else?

[Angela]

I think the blogosphere really does help, that's not to say that you aren't/weren't getting the publicity you deserved elsewhere, but I'm happy to help promote any of your future work, regardless of what it is. You are good writer and good writers deserve publicity. I know it doesn't always work out that way, but the web is a powerful place. And I'm glad I'm on that side of it. Write on, Tod!

[Danny Barer]

I think blogging -- specifically, this blog -- helped. Those vicious attacks on Parade Magazine columnists are potent marketing tools.

[Mike Berry]

As someone who reviews science fiction and fantasy for the San Francisco Chronicle, I can tell you that, given the huge amount of material that comes my way, I often won't get a chance to cover someone's work until his or her third or fourth book. First novels are usually a crap shoot, so they rarely make it to the To Be Read pile. For second novels, there are often "Big Books" by others that must be dealth with first. (That's how I ended up reading the damn "Eragon" dragon books against my will.)

But if I've heard that a writer has two or three solid books under his belt, I'll make an effort to review his latest release... in part so that I don't come off as completely cluess about trends in my field.