New paperback, new cover 13 Apr 2011

The paperback of This Is Where We Live will arrive in bookstores in just a few weeks. You may recall that the hardback cover was dark and ominous: Black, with dying tulips in a shattering vase.

Well, here's is the new paperback cover, and there's not a dot of black to be seen:

 

Familiar? Yes. Those who read "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" may find the cover eerily similar, in fact. (There is, for example, a dessert theme going on). Does it make you want to eat strawberry shortcake? Hopefully. But hopefully it will make you want to read even more. 

Personally, strawberry shortcake is one of my very favorite desserts. This cover is going to be a form of torture, because every time I look at it I'm going to want to pick up a fork. 

In any case, it's out in stores on May 17. (Though why wait? Buy it now at your favorite online retailer. Really, no need to wait. Seriously. I mean it.) And even though the cover is different, the content remains the same.

Five great California novels 19 Jul 2010

Last week, I wrote a post for the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy Blog about my five favorite California novels. (Click here to check it out). It was nearly impossible to limit myself to just five, so I thought I'd offer up a few more that didn't make the short list, but should definitely make it to your bookshelf:

- Carter Beats the Devil, by Glen David Gold. A sprawling epic based on the life of the stage magician Charles Carter, set early 20th century San Francisco 

- Liars and Saints, by Maile Meloy. A quirky multigenerational soap opera, which takes place during WWII in southern generational.

- Jamesland, by Michelle Hunevan. A great contemporary LA novel, inspired by the theology of William James.

- Less than Zero, by Bret Easton Ellis. Still his best book, so dark and damning.

- Oh The Glory of it All, by Sean Wilsey. A memoir by the son of a narcissistic San Francisco socialite. Very Mommy Dearest.

How Readings are like a Freshman English Class 7 Jul 2010

I'm back from a 10 days book tour, and as I gave reading after reading, it struck me that there are certain similarities between a bookstore reading and a high school classroom. To wit:

1) No one wants to sit in the front row. My readings might be standing-room only, with people in back having to jostle for position, and yet the first row would invariable be dead empty (except for the guy in Portland who was sitting in the front row clipping his fingernails, but that's another story). Even when I point out those empty seats, no one is willing to come forward to claim them -- no matter if they're pregnant, missing a leg, or 98 years old. I suspect that no one wants to be in the front row because they want to give themselves a chance at slipping out unseen if the reading turns out to be deadly dull, but really, unless you have a 200 person audience, an author is pretty much going to notice *anyone* who leaves in the middle of the reading. That empty front row always makes me feel a bit like a pariah, as if the audience is frightened of getting too close to me -- as if I, like a teacher who throws erasers at inattentive students or pitches screaming fits when no one does their homework, might start flinging bookmarks at the people in the front row or calling them out for typing on their iPhones while I'm reading aloud from the climax of the book. Really guys, I'm not that scary. I'm just glad you're filling a seat - I won't spit on you or yell at you or make you do extra homework. Promise!

2) No one wants to ask the first question. Generally, a reading is followed by a Q&A, giving audiences the chance to ask an author all the burning questions that they secretly want to ask. And yet, invariably, when I ask the audience, "Does anyone have any questions?" no one does. At least, not at first. Instead, I'm left up there trying to fill the empty air with some kind of vaguely coherent babble until some brave soul finally gets up the nerve to stick their hand in the air. Invariably, the question is "What was the inspiration for this story?" A predictable question, but still! I won't object. After all, it gets things started. And after that first question, a half dozen hands will immediately pop up in the air, so it's clearly not that people didn't *have* questions, it's just that they weren't willing to ask them yet. In this way a reading reminds me of a freshman English class, when the teacher asks what everyone thought of the homework, and no one is willing to answer first lest they give the wrong answer and look stupid. But I promise you, at a reading, there is no wrong question -- the author will be grateful for just about anything that shows some vague engagement with her/his writing. Even "what was the inspiration for this story?"

3) Signing books is kind of like a high-stakes pop quiz. When your aunt's old bridge partner or your former college dormmate or your sister's bridesmaid puts a book in front of you and asks you to sign it, you have to remember her name, and then, if you don't but probably should, figure out how to tease the name out of her without making it apparent that you don't remember. (The old "who should I sign this to?" trick works sometimes; but often the answer is a useless "me.") If, after a minute of small talk while you frantically run through your memory bank, you *do* have that critical epiphany, you still have to decide whether it's spelled Christine or Kristine or Chrystine or Christiane or Cristen. Trust me, you don't want to scratch out your mistake, not when they've just paid $26 for a precious paperback - after all, you want leave them with warm fuzzy feelings about you so that they'll buy your next book too. 

In a worst case scenario, I'll skip the name entirely and just write "Thanks for supporting the book." That won't earn me a failing grade, but is still probably no better than a C-. Which is a pass, but barely. 

Odds and ends 21 Jun 2010

 -- Slate's Double X anointed "This Is Where We Live" as their book of the week, dubbing it "enthralling." I'm flattered, ladies. Thank you!

-- The San Francisco Chronicle ran my review of Bret Easton Ellis' "Imperial Bedrooms." In a nutshell: "Ellis is either so deeply enmeshed in his own creepy little insular world that he can't write his way out of it, or else he is such a genius that he's created an entire parallel universe that folds and unfolds on itself like some kind of Escher print."

-- I've added a reading in Laguna Beach, at the wonderful Laguna Beach Bookstore. July 28, 7 pm. If you live anywhere in the vicinity, come say hello!

An Epigraph, Unused 21 Jun 2010

When I wrote "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything," I thought it would be a nice character detail if Janice Miller drove around town cheerfully humming a song from her youth. I ended up structuring the novel's first chapter -- which takes place on the day that Janice becomes unfathomably rich, and is simultaneously dumped by her husband -- around the song "Happy Together," by the Turtles. ("Imagine me and you, I do, I think about you day and night" etc. Trust me, you know it). I wove the song into the entire chapter, starting with the second paragraph of the novel, using it in different places to trigger memories from Janice's past, her optimism for the future, etc. 

This was all well and good until my editor asked me if I'd secured the rights to the song. 

Oops.

My editor gently enlightened me to the fact that I needed permission to use these lyric snippets -- that, in fact, there are entire law firms that deal almost exclusively with this kind of thing. So I hunted down The Turtles' law firm, and got in touch. It turned out that the rights-holder (ie: the songwriter who composed the tune for the Turtles) was fine with me using the song ... as long as I paid him a chunk of money. A chunk of money so sizable, in fact, that I began immediately to rethink using the lyrics at all. Unfortunately, the surgery on the novel would have been so extreme that I decide to suck it up and just pay. Which is why you see the "Happy Together" lyrics all over the first chapter, and I stopped drinking lattes.

So I learned my lesson, right? It's true, I did. With my second novel, "This Is Where We Live," whenever I felt the urge to quote a song lyric in the text, I stopped myself and asked whether it was vital to what I was trying to achieve with the book. Uniformly, the answer was no. I managed to write a whole book (and one about a musician, to boot) without extensively quoting any song, and I don't think it suffered as a result.

But I did have an epigraph. Since "This Is Where We Live" was inspired in part by a Robert Frost poem called "Directive," I thought I would use four lines from the poem as my epigraph. "Great," my editor responded. "So, do you have the rights?"

Oops.

It turns out, the whole permissions question also applies to poems, essays, other novels -- pretty much any text from which you quote more than two lines. You'd think that after 15 years as a professional writer, I would have known this. Somehow, I didn't. And this time around, I had a baby with a college education I needed to save for, so the idea of spending the money was far less appealing. An epigraph would have been nice, but it certainly wouldn't be missed if it wasn't there. As a result, anyone who buys "This Is Where We Live" will notice that there is no epigraph. My daughter will get a month at Harvard (no pressure, kid), instead.

As a side note - Whenever I now read a book that quotes extensively from songs, or poems, or other books, I always wonder whether that person shelled out a small fortune for rights, or whether they personally knew those musicians/writers/poets and somehow received permission gratis. ("Lit" by Mary Karr, for example, is chock-full of poetry, but I imagine she got most of it for free from her fellow poets.) Perhaps this is the new literary bragging rights: Free words from famous people.

In any case, I'm fairly certain that it's fine to publish the epigraph here. If not, I'm sure I'll hear from Robert Frost's lawyers. Until then, here it is, for your edification, my epigraph:

Weep for what little things could make them glad
Then for the house that is no more a house,
But only a belilaced cellar hole,
Now slowly closing like a dent in dough.
-- "Directive," Robert Frost. 

A playlist, and a filmography 17 Jun 2010

Yesterday, the New York Times Paper Cuts blog published my playlist of songs that inspired the character of Jeremy in "This Is Where We Live." (Click to read the whole thing, but a few highlights: "You Stood Me Up" by Benji Hughes, and "Your Love Is Mine" by Holly Golightly).

In order to be fair to Claudia, I thought I'd include her list of favorite films here. 

1) The Graduate - Transcendent. Hard to believe that Hollywood once green-lit movies this smart and edgy. Plus, the rare ending that's totally subject to interpretation. (Has the couple just done something amazing, or doomed themselves to lives of misery? You decide.) This one's for you, Mrs. Robinson.

2) Jules et Jim - French New Wave at its finest. A strange and stiff yet touching film about two friends who both love a dangerous and wild and ultimately suicidal woman. (In fact, she's a bit of an Aoki character.)

3) Sin Nombre - Hard to believe that a film about a Mexican gang member escaping over the border into America by riding atop of freight trains could be so beautiful. But it is, and it's also a love story, and it's also a nail-biter to boot. This is the kind of serious yet entertaining movie that Claudia longs to make.

4) Lost In Translation - Dreamy, ruminative, and directed by Sofia Coppola. A movie that feels like a long, wistful sigh.

5) Laurel Canyon - Frances McDormand is fantastic as a cool music industry mom who seduces her son's fiancee. Bohemianism and perpetual youth gone amok. Perhaps a warning tale for Claudia?

6) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - One of the best movies ever made about the beauty and devastation of love. Plus, a soundtrack that really gets under your skin.

7) Bob and Ted and Carol and Alice -- Yes, this is a movie about wife-swapping, but it's also a very funny movie about marital discord and the human need for connection.

8) Some Kind of Wonderful - Not the most famous John Hughes film, but the one that Claudia watched twenty times as a teenager, dreaming of the day she'd be as cool as Drummer Girl. At one point, she fantasized about getting a little star tattoo on her shoulder, too. Fortunately, she thought better of it.

9) Rosemary's Baby - A horror film, but a sneaky and smart one --  a gothic psychological thriller that's ultimately about the evil in urban life.

10) You Can Count On Me - Another Sundance movie, this one about a wayward brother who comes home to stay with his older sister and her son. Beautifully acted and very poignant (funny, too), it explores the roads we don't take, plus the struggle between being responsible and chasing our dreams.

"I put my characters through hell" 14 Jun 2010

 ... this is what I told Steffie Nelson, a lovely writer for the Los Angeles Times, who proceeded to write a very nice profile of me regardless of my authorial cruelty. I also told her that I like "putting characters in moments of moral ambiguity and seeing what they do." My poor characters should probably get together and form a support group.

The photographer spent about a half hour snapping pictures of me in my garden, in which I was smiling about 98% of the time. The photo they chose, naturally, was one of me looking extremely serious. Pensive. Ruminative. Perhaps -- you might even surmise -- feeling a tad bit guilty about my crimes against my characters. 

Don't be fooled. Deep down inside, I was laughing.

Trade reviews: The agony and the ectasy 7 Jun 2010

 The trade reviews for "This Is Where We Live" are all in now. For those of you who have no clue what a "trade review" is, these are the four book reviews that come out in advance of a book's publication, published in trade magazines that are read by booksellers, librarians, and other vendors who then use these reviews to make ordering decisions. Written, for the most part, by anonymous critics, the reviews are also circulated widely and generally help set the tenor of what's to come.

Let's review, shall we?

Library Journal: "Brown's follow up to her biting debut is another addictive read. This telling look at how the current economic crisis affects one family shows that Brown is no one-hit wonder." They gave it a starred review.

Kirkus: "Brown's tart second novel couldn't be more timely... a cringingly funny satire of love and money among the artsy class."

Booklist: "Brown proves adept at fully inhabiting both male and female characters in her sympathetic portrait of a troubled marriage. She also elevates her material with sharp commentary on the current economy while gamely tackling what it means to be a "grown up" and how our idea of who we think we should be gets in the way of who we really are. At once playful and heartbreaking, this novel never feels less than wholly true."

Great, right? I'm downright bursting with pleasure. 

That is, until I read the Publisher's Weekly (PW) review, which has this to say: "Married 30-something artists Claudia and Jeremy Munger are the unlucky anchors of Brown's shaky sophomore novel.... The gauntlets the Mungers face verge on Kafkaesque, yet the novel proceeds with painful earnestness." Oh. I suppose I can be comforted that the critic finishes with a back-handed compliment: "There are lovely small moments—Claudia's awkward run-in with a former student, for instance—that give hope that the undeniably talented author will find her footing again after this flawed effort." Thanks, I guess?

Part of reconciling yourself to life as an author is coming to terms with the fact that there will always be someone out there who hates your book. Hopefully, not a whole lot of someones. And hopefully not someone who has undue influence on other people. But it's nearly inevitable that at least one of the trades will hate you: Last time around, it was Kirkus that hated my book, and Publisher's Weekly who loved it. 

Most reviews -- even the bad ones -- you can (kind of) shrug off. But what makes a bad trade review so painful is its online ubiquity. The trade reviews (particularly Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus) get reprinted *everywhere*. The very first review you read on Amazon, for example, is the one from Publisher's Weekly, which gets prime placement at the top of the Editorial Reviews section. It doesn't matter if the New York Times Book Review puts you on the cover and anoints you the next great literary superstar -- PW still has the first (and often, final) word. This means that your average Amazon browser will be quickly convinced that TIWWL is "shaky" and "flawed" (per PW), unless they persevere and click further to read the good reviews and discover that someone else thought it was "addictive" and "cringingly funny" and "heartbreaking." 

Am I complaining? A little. But not really. Because what counts most, in the end, is the readers who do love your book -- those "someones" who not only enjoy it but pass their love along, recommending your book to like-minded folk with similar taste. The worst reviews in the world, after all, didn't stop "Sex In the City 2" a small fortune at the box office; surely Philip Roth and Barbara Kingsolver and Jennifer Weiner have survived a few bad trade reviews and gone on to the bestseller lists anyway. So hopefully one anonymous critic at PW won't scare off too many potential readers. I can only hope that there are more -- and at the moment I'm batting 75% -- who like it enough to counter the criticism. 

After all, as they say, chacun à son goût. I can live with that.

New year, new book, new Web site, new posts 4 May 2010

My new novel, This Is Where We Live, comes out on June 15. That means that I'm currently in the twilight period between finishing the novel and its publication: I've edited and proofread and given a final once-over to the layout. I've approved the cover, the marketing copy, and sent out advance readers copies to editors and critics. I've picked out a new author photo, and redesigned my Web site. Now I enter the waiting period, an unpleasant span of time where there's not much to do except for wait for the reviews to start rolling in. And fret.

Which means it's as good a time as any to try to start blogging again. 

I used to run half-marathons, up until the point when I got pregnant. After I gave birth to my daughter, last August, my first few runs were slow and brief, more like aimless speed-walks around the block than actual runs. Consider this post to be my equivalent of a post-birth jog -- attenuated, slightly pointless, more about getting back in the practice of blogging than actually having much to say.

Keeping it simple, I'm just going to start with a photo: The cover of "This Is Where We Live." It was a challenge to come up with an image that was as compelling as the melting sundae on "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything." (People sometimes tell me they bought the novel solely because of the cover. Thanks, I guess?). We went through roughly a half-dozen attempts, before landing here. I think it's striking.