Lightning didn't strike for any single title this year at BookExpo. In fact, after the past six months of sluggish book sales, both booksellers and publishers were focused on just-published or about-to-be published titles at the beginning of the show. Case in point: The Clearing, Tim Gautreaux's fourth book, coming from Knopf in June, inspired rhapsodic comparisons to Lonesome Dove and Plainsong. As for the fall titles, the consensus was that houses large and small have great lists, with a handful of titles expected to break out. Now, if only the economy would pick up.
Amid the many favorite authors at the show, three appeared on booksellers' radar and stayed there. Pulitzer Prize—winner Jhumpa Lahiri left many curious about how she would adapt the narrative skills that distinguished her short stories to her first novel, The Namesake (Houghton Mifflin, Sept.), about second-generation Indian immigrants. Jonathan Lethem also drew considerable attention with The Fortress of Solitude (Doubleday, Sept. 16), the follow-up to his '99 NBCC-winning Motherless Brooklyn. According to Carla Cohen of Politics & Prose, in Washington, D.C., his tale of two boys, one black and one white, which has a delightful superhero comic book element, "shows he is not resting on his laurels." And David Guterson, whose 1994 debut, Snow Falling on Cedars, was the talk of that year's BEA, returned to the spotlight with his third novel, Our Lady of the Forest (Knopf, Oct.).
Finding a fresh voice in fiction might be one of BEA's greatest pleasures for booksellers, and this year did not disappoint. Grove led the way, once again, with Frances Itani's much-talked-about debut, Deafening (Sept.), a story about the love between a deaf woman and a hearing man set against the backdrop of WWI. Little, Brown also made a splash with The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters (Jan., 2004), a novel by Elisabeth Robinson (producer of Braveheart and Last Orders) about one sister's struggle to make a movie and the other's struggle with suicide. Harper's Amistad imprint also drew plenty of interest with Edward P. Jones's The Known World (Sept.). Both City Lights' Paul Yamazaki and Elliott Bay's Rick Simonson put this debut novel about a former slave-become-slave-owner in antebellum Virginia on their hot lists. And MacAdam/Cage proved itself a must-stop for booksellers looking for fine first fiction with The Time Traveler's Wife (Sept. 9) by Audrey Niffenegger (rights sold for a Brad Pitt/Jennifer Aniston flick).
Penguin, back at the show after an absence of seven years, had one of the hottest commercial debut novels. Retribution by Jillianne Hoffman (Jan., 2004) has a planned 250,000-copy first printing and a $300,000 marketing budget—and few booksellers made it past the booth without getting a galley.
With a little less fanfare but no less passion, Farrar, Straus & Giroux announced that Shirley Hazzard returns to its roster with a WWII novel called The Great Fire (Oct.), her first since the 1981 NBCC-winning The Transit of Venus. "It's as if George Eliot were writing books in the 21st century," said FSG editor-in-chief Jonathan Galassi, who hopes to introduce Hazzard to a new generation of readers.
Several second novels drew crowds, too. Booksellers flocked to the Harper/Morrow booth for Four Spirits (Sept.) by Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife, and The Way the Crow Flies (Oct.) by Anne-Marie MacDonald, author of the Oprah pick Fall on Your Knees. Carole Horne of Harvard Bookstore said she was high on The Mammoth Cheese (Grove, July) by Sheri Holman, author of The Dress Lodger. "It's an incredible novel about a little town in Virginia where a couple taking fertility drugs has 11 babies, and the media descends," she explained.
It's always intriguing when an author tries something new. Mystery writer Ayelet Waldman got a lot of attention for what Kathleen Caldwell of Lafayette Books in Lafayette, Calif., called her "literary debut," Daughter's Keeper (Sourcebooks/ Landmark, Oct.). Elaine Petrocelli at Book Passage in Corte Madera, Calif., told PW that she was particularly impressed with the complexity of the characters and the mother-daughter relationship. "You feel like you know them," she said.
A debut collection of short stories swam into the limelight: How to Breathe Under Water (Knopf, Sept.) by Julie Orringer. Petrocelli said she hasn't been this excited about a story collection since Ethan Canin's Emperor of the Air. "I'd like to read a whole novel based on each one of these stories," she said. But given the fall's riches, City Lights' Yamasaki wondered how someone like Orringer will break out. The same might be said of Nell Freudenberger, who had a story in last year's debut fiction issue of the New Yorker and landed a deal with Ecco, which will publish her first collection, Lucky Girls, in September.
Authors who need no introduction to booksellers are Jimmy Carter and Mitch Albom, yet each is making his debut as a novelist. In The Hornet's Nest (S&S, Nov.), the former president writes about an ancestor in Georgia during the Revolutionary War. Hyperion filled a theater at the convention center to introduce Tuesdays with Morrie author Albom's first fiction, Five People You Meet in Heaven (Sept. 23).
Speaking of well-known names, it looks like fall 2003 will provide a roster of heavy hitters, much to booksellers' delight. In fiction, the list includes, from Knopf, Toni Morrison's Love (Oct.), P.D James's The Murder Room (Nov.) and Peter Carey's My Life as a Fake (Nov.); Yellow Dog by Martin Amis (Miramax, Nov.); Frederick Forsyth's Avenger (St. Martin's, Sept.), his first big book since The Day of the Jackal; and Double Vision by Pat Barker (FSG, Dec.), to just scratch the surface. James Patterson was spotted walking the floor with AOL Time Warner Book Group CEO Larry Kirshbaum promoting his latest, The Lake House (Little, Brown, June 9). And Doubleday announced a surprise novel by John Grisham, Bleachers (Sept. 9). Though it's not a thriller, "You're never sad to hear there's a surprise commercial novel with bestselling potential," observed Stan Hynds of Northshire Books in Manchester Center, Vt.
Knock-out Nonfiction
While brand-name fiction certainly brings book buyers into the stores, Margaret Maupin at the Tattered Cover in Denver said she's always looking for great nonfiction that will lure lots of readers. "We need something like The Greatest Generation to get people," she said, carefully eyeing Flyboys by James Bradley (Little, Brown, Oct.).
For her nonfiction picks, Roberta Rubin of the Bookstall at Chestnut Court in Winnetka, Ill., said she does well with history. There was plenty of that on hand. Bookseller after bookseller mentioned They Marched into Sunlight: October 1967: War and Peace in Vietnam and America (S&S, Oct. 1) by David Maraniss. The Pulitzer Prize—winning journalist alternates between protests at the University of Wisconsin campus (where he was a freshman) and the front lines of the war in Vietnam. Other historical titles of note were The Flyers: In Search of Wilbur and Orville Wright by NPR host Noah Adams (Crown, Oct. 14) and Edison & the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death by Mark Essig (Walker, Sept.).
Military history marches on with Intelligence in Warfare by John Keegan (Knopf, Oct.); The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theatre in WWII by Donovan Webster (FSG, Oct.); and Rising Tide: the Untold Story of the Russian Submarines That Fought the Cold War (Basic, Nov.) by historian Gary E. Weir and Walter J. Boyne, author of Blind Man's Bluff. Basic also has The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings by New York Newsday reporter Tom Maier (Oct.), which marketing director John Hughes calls "a five-generation history of the ultimate Irish Catholic family."
For Civil War enthusiasts, a Norton title promises "a different Civil War" in In the Presence of Mine Enemies: War in the Heart of America, 1859—1863 by Edward L. Ayers (Sept.). A Pulitzer Prize and NBA finalist, Ayers delivers a story of the war's descent on ordinary people in the Great Valley spreading from Pennsylvania into Virginia.
In recent years, Yamasaki said he has observed a surprising uptick in sales of American colonial history. Yale University Press unveiled a book by Gore Vidal: Father of the Republic: Washington, Adams, Jefferson and the Invention of a Nation (Nov.). Vidal will make selective appearances to support the book.
Several biographies of colonial figures are also coming out this fall, most notably Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (S&S, July). Franklin has been the subject of a couple of big biographies recently, so people will be watching to see if Isaacson's breaks out. Borders Books and Music spokesperson Ann Binkley told PW that she thought the book would be even bigger than David McCullough's John Adams because "the American people are looking for heroes."
Two of the season's major biographies focus on founding fathers as slave owners. The Negro President by Gary Wills (Houghton Mifflin, Nov.) is about Jefferson, while An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves and the Creation of America by Harry Wiencek (FSG, Nov.) explores new evidence that Washington fathered a son with a slave named Venus.
The biography that Cohen from Politics & Prose found most appealing was Gellhorn: A Twentieth-Century Life by Caroline Moorehead (Holt, Oct.). "You become involved with Martha Gellhorn from the very first sentence, and what a fabulous life," she said of the one-time wife of Ernest Hemingway and glamorous correspondent who covered every major war from the Spanish Civil War to the end of the Cold War. Tracey Kidder's biography of infectious disease expert Dr. Paul Farmer, Mountains Beyond Mountains (Random, Sept.), also surfaced as one of the season's more intriguing picks. Even before the news about SARS broke out, Random made a seven-figure bet on U.S. and Canadian rights.
Other biography highlights include Peggy Noonan on Pope John Paul II, John Paul the Great (Viking, Oct.); Robert Hughes on Goya (Knopf, Nov.); Diane Middlebrook on poet Ted Hughes, Her Husband (Viking, Oct.); and Pulitzer Prize—winner Robert Coles on Bruce Springsteen's America: The People Listening, A Poet Singing (Random, Nov.), in which he places the Garden State's favorite son in such esteemed company as William Carlos Williams and Walt Whitman.
In November, two books about beloved newspaper columnist Ann Landers will arrive: America's Mom: The Life, Lessons and Legacy of Ann Landers (Morrow, Nov.), a biography by Chicago Tribune columnist Rick Kogan, and A Life in Letters: Ann Landers' Letters to Her Only Child (Warner, Nov.) by Margo Howard. "My mother wrote this book," the author says in the introduction. "It took her 44 years."
In memoir, a category somewhere between biography and fiction, the shelf is loaded again. Scribner announced the publication of a book by Marianne Pearl, widow of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel, titled, A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl (Sept.). And Knopf, which already has a bestselling Spanish edition of the first installment of Gabriel García Márquez's three-volume memoir, will deliver the English version of Living to Tell the Tale in November. Among Knopf's other memoirs (all Sept.) are Maxine Hong Kingston's The Fifth Book of Peace, Joan Didion's Where I Was From and Mark Salzman's True Notebooks, about his experience teaching at a juvenile corrections facility near L.A. "That's the Mark Salzman who burst on the scene with Iron and Silk," noted Cohen.
At Broadway, number one New York Times bestseller Lance Armstrong is back with his account of recent personal and professional victories, Every Second Counts (Oct. 14). "I think his publisher is counting on that being huge," said Hynds. "It looks very strong and it sounds like it has new material." And Doubleday has dropped a new E. Lynn Harris memoir into the summer list, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted (July 8).
Speaking of more commercial memoirs, disco diva Donna Summer tells her story in Ordinary Girl (Villard, Sept.), Chaka Kahn recounts her rise in rock and roll and R&B in Chaka! Through the Fire (Rodale, Oct.) and folk singer Judy Collins talks about picking up the pieces of her life after her daughter's death in Sanity and Grace (Putnam, Oct.). Meanwhile, Yogi Berra, the only baseball player to have won enough World Series rings to adorn every finger, tells the story of those winning seasons in Ten Rings (Morrow, Sept.).
Politics on the Front Burner
Authors who made their names in politics were also in evidence: Madeleine Albright's Madame Secretary (Miramax, Sept.) and Robert Rubin's Dealing with an Uncertain World: Making Decisions on Wall Street and in Washington (Random, Oct.) both got a lot of buzz. And Gerry Adams charmed and intrigued attendees at a bookseller breakfast, talking about his A Further Shore: Ireland's Road to Peace (Random, Oct.). Most booksellers thought Hillary Clinton's Living History, just out from S&S, will probably sell through the fall and that Barbara Bush's Reflections: Life After the White House (Scribner, Oct.) will find its own audience.
With another presidential primary season only six months away, political books abound. One of the most talked about was The Great Unraveling by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (Norton, Sept.). "It proves once and for all, that yes, Virginia, there is a right-wing conspiracy," said Star Lawrence, who edited the book.
Authors from across the political spectrum will bash and praise Bush throughout the fall: Michael Moore in Dude, Where's My Country? (Warner, Oct.), Molly Ivins in Bushwhacked with Lou Dubose (Random, Sept.) and recent sparring partners Bill O'Reilly (Who's Looking Out for You?, Broadway, Sept. 30) and Al Franken (Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Dutton, Oct.). The New Press is publishing a curious deck of cards called Regime Change Begins at Home, along with a couple of Noam Chomsky titles in paperback. And Chomsky heads Holt's American Empire Project with Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (Oct.). "I think anyone who doesn't like Bush will be dying to read books that are critical of him," observed Betsy Burton of the King's English in Salt Lake City. "And despite what they say, there are many of us out there."
At Politics & Prose, Cohen said her customers will seek out reasonable voices on important issues, which is why she liked Matthew Miller's The Two Percent Solution: Fixing America's Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love (Public Affairs, Sept.).
In current events, Iraq and post—September 11 remain of interest, but booksellers told PW they were looking for titles that say something new and stress the human element over the political. The day-to-day account of Iraqis during the war conveyed in Naked in Baghdad by NPR correspondent Anne Garrels (FSG, Sept.), could fit the bill. With questions surrounding exactly what happened during the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch, Rescue in Nasiriya by Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, the Iraqi lawyer who tipped off the Marines about her whereabouts, might provide some answers (HarperCollins, Oct.). For the more military-minded, Bantam's The March Up by F.J. Bing West, assistant secretary of defense under Reagan, and Maj. Gen. Ray L. Smith, a decorated Marine, gives an account of the journey from Kuwait to Baghdad (Sept.). Gail Sheehy's Middletown, America (Random, Aug.), about the New Jersey town that suffered the highest death toll in the September 11 attacks, should distinguish itself.
"Title-wise, it looks like it is going to be a great fall," Hynds summed up. The lists are rich, but the question remains: will the public be buying?
