Fall Fiction Preview, BEA Recap, and Fall Fiction Galley Giveaway!

Fall Fiction Preview, BEA Recap, and Fall Fiction Galley Giveaway!

(Hey, you: the contest info is at the bottom, but you should read the whole thing first!)

The last couple of weeks have been pretty crazy here at Coffee House, and heading into July, we have a lot going on. Of course we announced our exciting transition whereby Allan Kornblum is passing the torch to Chris Fischbach, who will become Publisher of our press come mid-July. (A few have said that Allan is retiring, but in fact he is staying on as Senior Editor and Founder—he won’t be becoming a man of leisure just yet.)  See our full press release on the leadership transition and feel free to congratulate Chris on this exciting moment in his career at fish@coffeehousepress.org, or if you’re more into brevity @FishMPLS.

As we look ahead to our future of brewing good books, our Fall 2011 fiction is percolating nicely. So to whet your appetite for these fabulous titles, here is our official Fall 2011 fiction preview. And because you can’t talk about fall books without talking about BookExpo America (BEA), we’ll also give you the scoop on the big trade show that went down at NYC’s Jacob K. Javits Center last month.

Glass by Sam Savage

Release date: September 13, 2011

In a sentence: Edna, aging and alone, tells the story of her marriage to a successful writer, as she attempts to write the preface to the new edition of her late husband’s bestselling novel.

In a phrase: Traversing the landscape of solitude and memory

In a word: Sam

First sentence: “I think a lot.”

If you are fan of Sam Savage’s writing (Firmin, The Cry of the Sloth), Glass is another gem of a novel for you to devour. Main character Edna struggles to assert her identity and emerge from the shadow of her late husband, a successful writer. As she writes the preface to his book, she reflects on her own writing life, her attempt at a life after Clarence, and memories of their marriage. Edna’s memories soon reveal themselves to hold a treasure trove of secrets, and hints at a relationship defined by either a crass and controlling husband, or a neurotic and delusional wife—which case we are dealing with is the mystery at the heart of this novel. The novel’s strength comes from Sam Savage’s brilliant portrait of Edna, at times both exasperating and endearing—and always unforgettable.

“Introspection is at the heart of this new novel from Savage, which effectively defines that jewel of a word, velleity (the lowest level of compulsion to act, a slight impulse to do something). . . . Reading like an intersection between Samuel R. Delany’s The Motion of Light in Water and Marlen Haushofer’s The Wall in its take on the overriding truth of memory and the heroic task of solitude, this is an original and compelling book. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal, starred review

Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner

Release Date: September 13, 2011

In a sentence: Adam Gordon, a young poet studying abroad on a fellowship in Madrid, struggles to establish his sense of self and understand the role of art in the era of modern spectacle and the unspeakable tragedy of the 2004 Atocha train bombings.

In a phrase: A portrait of the artist as a young man in the age of spectacle

In a word: contemporary

First sentence: “The first phase of my research involved waking up weekday mornings in a barely furnished attic apartment, the first apartment I’d looked at after arriving in Madrid, or letting myself be woken by the noise from La Plaza Santa Ana, failing to assimilate that noise fully into my dream, then putting on the rusty stovetop espresso machine and rolling a spliff while I waited for the coffee.”

Ben Lerner is well known for being a successful poet (The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw, Mean Free Path) and has even been recognized by the National Book Award Foundation for his poetry. In Leaving the Atocha Station, Lerner uses that poetic sensibility to speak directly to the Millennial generation, whose search for authenticity and adulthood is notoriously plagued with apathy, irony, and self-consciousness. When the main character Adam reacts to the Prado Museum in the opening chapter, he is recalling a sentiment familiar to many. (“I had long worried that I was incapable of having a profound experience of art and I had trouble believing that anyone had, at least anyone I knew.”)  Where does your desired interpretation of art stop and genuine artistic experience begin? Framing the story in the aftermath of the 2004 Atocha bombing brings the modern age of spectacle right up against these questions in ways both subtle and startling.

“Utterly charming. Lerner’s self-hating, lying, overmedicated, brilliant fool of a hero is a memorable character, and his voice speaks with a music distinctly and hilariously all his own.” —Paul Auster

“An extraordinary novel about the intersections of art and reality in contemporary life.” –John Ashbery

Sleight by Kirsten Kaschock

Release date: October 11, 2011

In a sentence: Sisters Lark and Clef are performers of sleight—a fictionalized art form that combines elements of dance, architecture, acrobatics, and spoken word—and are reunited after years of estrangement by an ambitious sleight director who needs the sisters to bring a new performance to the stage, one based on a disturbing mass murder.

In a phrase: Sinuous exploration of the tension between the visual and the written, and creative drive and responsibility

In a word: movement

First sentence: “‘Clef—I don’t think I’ve heard that name before. Not for a woman.’”

Where to start? Sleight is an incredibly ambitious and challenging take on what a novel can do. Translating the idea of sleight, this wholly original creation of Kaschock’s imagination, into words must have been no easy task, and part of the novel is mystery—the mystery of what this art form looks like, feels like, sounds like. It becomes a source of tension that propels the text, and the reader, forward. Like Lerner, Kaschock is a poet who has adapted that poetic sense of fluidity into a novel, and the result is a very atmospheric book. The elements of the fantastic give the novel a Márquez-like feeling and these flourishes of surrealism—Lark births Needs, physical manifestations of her desires, and dancers at the apex of performance momentarily disappear, or “wick”—bring you closer to understanding what Kaschock is saying about art, creativity, performance, and family.

“Kaschock’s work stands out for the originality of its concepts, narrative structure, and, particularly, language, as the author redefines words in relation to her art and boldly breaks from traditional grammatical constructions. Kaschock’s intimate knowledge of dance is an asset, helping her bring the sleight performers vividly to life. . . . Sleight is to the traditional fiction narrative what alternative music is to mainstream pop. Readers who enjoy the challenge of an innovative, unconventional style will take pleasure in this selection.”—Library Journal

“Sleight is either disturbingly enjoyable or enjoyably disturbing—I can’t decide which. What’s certain is that Kirsten Kaschock is a wildly talented writer. You should read this book.” –Adam Levin, author of The Instructions

* * *

So, there you have our Fall 2011 fiction! Stay tuned for a preview of our Fall 2011 poetry, which includes new collections from Quincy Troupe, Victor Hernández Cruz, Ed Bok Lee, the debut collection from local spoken word poet Bao Phi, and National Poetry Series winner James Grinwis.

* * *

Next, a short recap of this year’s BookExpo, held May 24-26 at Jacob K. Javits Center in New York. (If you don’t know where the Javits Center is, just visualize the farthest-away place you have ever imagined.) Coffee House Press set up shop Monday afternoon care of Jessica Deutsch, and yours truly. Isn’t our booth pretty?

Publisher-to-be Chris Fischbach has his BEA game face on

Kirsten Kaschock, author of Sleight, was on hand to celebrate her book and promote its October release with a signing of the galley on Tuesday afternoon. To really represent the theme and feel of the book, we had some local dancers from Fordham, Alvin Ailey, and Julliard in our booth to perform a piece evocative of Sleight—a fluid, interesting dance that had many passersby taking pictures and asking questions. We would like to thank Kirsten for putting this together, and her sister Taryn Kaschock Russell for helping to recruit the dancers. And finally, to the dancers themselves – thank you for your wonderful performance!

Kirsten Kaschock, with her sister Taryn Kashock Russell

Dancers invade our booth during Kirsten's galley signing

Has Allan ever missed a BookExpo?

Allan Kornblum: the man, the legend

Jessica and I found really good gyros in the food court.  Hence the smile.

Our happy Marketing and Sales Director, Jessica Deutsch

We gave away many, many galleys—and our famous BEA broadside, which has become a well-known and coveted BEA grab.

All in all, a great show and a chance to meet some new people and get away from our desks to meet colleagues and partners face-to-face. Until next year . . .

* * *

OK, finally—we come to our Fall fiction giveaway! We are giving away our Fall fiction prize pack. How do you enter? There are several options:

Post a link to this blog entry to your Facebook page and tag Coffee House Press in the post (You have to tag us for this to count, which means you must first like our page. www.facebook.com/CoffeeHousePress)

OR

Post this link to your blog. (Send your blog URL to tricia@coffeehousepress.org)

OR

Retweet our corresponding tweet/link on Twitter (@Coffee_House_)

OR

Comment on this post below

Do any of the above* and you are entered into a chance to win an advanced reader’s copy of each of our Fall 2011 fiction titles (Glass by Sam Savage, Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner, and Sleight by Kirsten Kaschock), plus our limited-edition broadside (featuring a poem by Ron Padgett, hand-set and printed in-house by Allan Kornblum), and a Coffee House Press totebag.

*If you do all four options (Facebook, Tweet, blog, and comment), your name will be entered four times into the drawing. If you do two of them, you get two entries, and so forth. But only one entry per medium will be counted, so it doesn’t matter how many times you retweet, you only get one Twitter entry.

Get it? Good!

Contest ends Friday, July 1 @ 5 PM Central Time (6 PM EST).