In this week's Endnotes, we take a look at Lyta Gold's debut Dangerous Fictions (Soft Skull, Oct.). In it, Gold explores assumptions about the power of fiction, social panics, and the current spike in book bans and book challenges nationwide.
Here's how the book came together:
Mensah Demary, Editor-in-Chief, Soft Skull Press
“Soft Skull first reviewed the proposal for Dangerous Fictions back in 2022, and after a number of productive and thoughtful conversations, both internally and with the author and agent, it seemed a perfectly unique situation for the imprint to publish a debut author’s new and daring work of nonfiction.”
Erik Hane, Founder and Agent, Headwater Literary Management
“When Lyta first presented the idea to me, and then very early on in our development of the book proposal, I knew this was a ‘dream book’ for me both in terms of subject matter and Lyta’s writing style. Dangerous Fictions contains so many sharp, funny discussions of things I’d been thinking about for a long time, things which Lyta’s work helps me understand on a much deeper level.”
Farjana Yasmin, Cover Designer
“A concept I explored to represent censorship and book bans was to show a pile of books burning up in flames, which became the approved cover. This was a reference to one of my favorite books, Fahrenheit 451, which often comes to mind when I think of censorship. An illustrated style more accurately reflects the lightness and humor the author uses to discuss a serious social issue.”
Lyta Gold, Author
“When book bans started kicking up in 2021, I considered writing an article about the idea of books as dangerous. I noticed that this new fear of fiction was closely related to a lot of other popular ideas about the danger and power of art that have been driving me crazy for the last decade or so. When I started putting those ideas together with what I already knew about the history of fiction as an especially ‘dangerous’ medium, I realized I had something much bigger than an article.”
