Well, it took a little longer than I expected, but word of several major books in the works about hurricane Katrina and its aftermath—including one from Big Easy native (and Moneyball author) Michael Lewis for Norton, another by historian
Douglas Brinkley for Morrow and a CNN/Andrews McMeel project—signals the start of the Katrina publishingpalooza.
After two weeks of writing big checks and gazing in mute horror at the images coming from the Gulf Coast, publishing has remembered itself and its implicit cultural obligation: to chronicle and make sense of historical events that alter human experience. And if somebody can make a profit on it: well, that's a good thing.
Historically, publishing has not been so nimble. Given the laborious process of finding, writing, editing, printing and promoting books, the pre-technological revolution houses rarely stepped into the newshound's fray. If houses followed the news at all, they did it "with perspective"—think All the President's Men or the several books about Iran-Contra that came out many months, if not years, after the events that inspired them. But whether you credit (or blame) improved technology, increased competition, or demanding corporate-conglomerate bosses, we now have a publishing world (if not, sadly, a government) that is expected to react quickly and decisively.
Some houses, like the aforementioned Norton, Morrow and AM, are signing up books specifically about the Katrina tragedy itself—just as, four years ago, many publishers rushed to buy books chronicling the events of that horrible September day. Most were only moderately successful at best. More profitable—and cheaper in the first place—were books on the creation, history and lore of the lost Twin Towers; for several months after 9/11, several historical books on the vanished icons dominated the bestseller lists. Which might explain why today, publishers ranging from Algonquin, which is pushing up Andre Codrescu's collection of essays on New Orleans from June to January, to Thomas Nelson, which is re-releasing Robert St. John's My South, a "romantic snapshot" of Southern culture, are taking this more impressionistic route.
Still, it's not clear whether all this ripped-from-the-headlines publishing is a result of thoughtful reactive planning, or more, as Jon Stewart so eloquently put it, the kind of me-too-ism that inspires middle-school soccer players to converge without strategy on one kid just because he has the ball. One of publishing's greatest strengths has always been its ability to provide perspective through its books, to offer a saner, more reasoned response than that available in increasingly popular McPapers and on up-to-the-minute TV news. But perspective takes time and time is a luxury not readily offered by this competitive publishing world.
Make no mistake: I expect that Lewis and Brinkley and whatever other experienced journalists sign on will produce books of real value. But the question remains whether jumping on a story that may well still be developing when these books come out in 2006 is a good idea.
As for commercial success... well, Katrina is not the Scott Peterson trial, although it has gotten almost as much attention in the news media. While it's one thing for readers to make bestsellers of not one, not two, but three books about the sensational murder of a pregnant woman, it remains to be seen whether the book-buying public will care in any great number about books on this slightly more important current event. No matter when they appear.
