This Book

I am so conflicted about what to say about This Town.

You’ve probably heard about it: the dishy tell-all book about Washington’s inner workings, a book whose author brings impeccable credentials to the task. He is Mark Leibovich, chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine. Formerly, he was the newspaper’s chief national political correspondent, and also worked for the Washington Post.

As you’d expect, Leibovich has had a front-row seat to the nation’s capitol follies. And therein lies the delicious, guilty pleasure of reading “this” book. There’s gossip, hilarious profiles of movers and shakers, a jaded but exuberant perspective on what goes on in DC.

His writing is sharp and riotously funny. Many passages beg to be read aloud. For example, this description of a Senator, at journalist Tim Russert’s funeral, trying to look—well, funereal: “[he] walks slowly into the church and adheres to the distinctive code of posture at the fancy-pants funeral: head bowed, conspicuously biting the lips, squinting extra hard for the full telegenic grief effect.”

Leibovich brings his insider’s eye and dark humor to funerals, parties, political conventions, lunch meetings, and other assorted settings. There’s often a gleeful tone at skewering the bloviating politicians, journalists, lobbyists, and assorted hangers-on. Any reader with curiosity about what really goes on inside the Beltway will enjoy the author’s ringside seat.

But—here’s the thing. When Leibovich looks under the rocks, he sees and write about serious dysfunction in national politics—creepy trends that will send your cynic-o-meter soaring. His main point is not just that politicians have big egos—we knew that—it’s that their motives are hopelessly intertwined with the interests of lobbying firms. The “formers” (former Congressmen, former White House staffers, etc) parlay their access to influence by joining the big K street firms offering fat salaries. Everyone, ultimately, is trying to suck up to someone in power. Journalists are not immune. It seems to be one big, snarled ball of back scratching and self-interest.

Depressed yet? Well, I was, as I read this book. So, I’m conflicted about whether to recommend it. Probably, I do. It’s wonderfully well written and offers a reasoned critique of DC culture. But be prepared to feel hopeless about the system in “this town.” Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Gem in the Piedmont

This article was originally published in the November/December 2012 issue of Chapel Hill Magazine. Some readers of this blog may have seen the original article; I’m reprinting it here for those who didn’t see the original and would enjoy knowing about the special publishing house in my neck of the woods. -- KB

The Little Publishing Company That Could

BY KATIE BAER

Thirty years ago, an unlikely story began to unfold with the launch of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Co-founded by Louis Rubin and Shannon Ravenel, the upstart literary press sought exceptional writers, many of them Southern. Almost immediately, Algonquin scored critical success with books from the likes of Jill McCorkle, Clyde Edgerton, Kaye Gibbons and Larry Brown.

Managing the fledgling company was a labor of love. Rubin and Ravenel were the only full-timers – and didn’t draw salaries for the first six years. The original editorial office was in a shack in the back of Rubin’s home on Gimghoul Road. Later, they moved to an office, then a small mill house in Carrboro. The staff, small and congenial, brought their dogs to work.

A Southern Accent

Fast-forward three decades: Algonquin, which was acquired by Workman Publishing Company in 1989, now occupies an entire floor of a low-rise building in a leafy office park off Weaver Dairy Road and employs 15 in Chapel Hill. The sales staff is located in New York.

Alas, no dogs roam the office these days. Otherwise, many of the Algonquin’s special qualities persist. Editors select a modest number of manuscripts – about 15 to 20 per year – both fiction and nonfiction, to publish and strongly support so that they may succeed in a highly competitive marketplace.  Algonquin authors like McCorkle, Lee Smith and Robert Morgan continue to provide the press with a Southern accent. But the company has evolved from being a regional publisher to one of national stature. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen was a breakout bestseller – made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson – and other books have won commercial, as well as critical, success.

An Improbable Venture

Algonquin will mark its 30th anniversary in the coming year with a series of special events. It also will honor its origins by purchasing back the paperback rights to some of its earliest titles – like Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons, Raney by Clyde Edgerton, Big Fish by Daniel Wallace and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez – and reissuing them with new covers and reading guide material. “We want to celebrate the authors who helped make us who we are,” says Ina Stern, associate publisher and a member of the editorial board.

Also on tap for 2013: Algonquin will publish new novels by Jill McCorkle, Lee Smith and Robert Morgan. And another new venture will be the debut of a line of titles for young readers, aimed at middle and high schoolers.

In the beginning, Rubin and Ravenel didn’t imagine enormous commercial success; they just wanted to help young writers get a toehold in the publishing world. Rubin hatched the idea for a Chapel Hill-based company after he participated in an academic panel on Southern writing in New York and realized that young Southern writers had trouble getting published without industry connections.

 “I thought, ‘Why not start a publishing company to help young writers launch their careers?’” Rubin recalls. So he contacted Ravenel, a former student of his at Hollins University, to ask if she was interested.  She said yes right away. Using their personal funds and some help from a few investors, they started Algonquin Books, publishing their first list of four books in 1983. (They decided to call the company Algonquin (the name of Rubin’s boat) after their original idea for a name – Bright Leaf Publishing – struck some as conjuring up images of the tobacco industry.)

Both co-founders had the literary background to tackle such an improbable venture.  A distinguished writer, editor and teacher, Rubin taught for 22 years in UNC’s English department, following 10 years at Hollins. Encyclopedia Virginia describes him as “perhaps the person most responsible for the emergence of Southern literature as a field of scholarly inquiry.” Ravenel’s credentials were impressive, too: She had worked as an editor at Houghton Mifflin publishers and was for 20 years the series editor of the annual anthology, Best American Short Stories.

Many of the early authors had been Rubin’s students and friends and all benefited from his encouragement. McCorkle was one of those. “I was lucky to have been around in those early years and to have known Louis,” she says. “He has a gift of nurturing young writers and helping them achieve success with their careers.” Algonquin published her two first novels simultaneously in 1984 – a publishing milestone – and both were well reviewed in The New York Times.

While Algonquin was building its reputation for finding and publishing literary work by emerging young authors, the business side faced challenges. By 1989, it was clear that help was needed, so Rubin and Ravenel went to New York to talk business with major publishing houses. In the end, Algonquin was bought by Workman, a large, independent publisher best known for nonfiction and calendars.

Making an Imprint

From the beginning, Workman was committed to maintaining the character of the company while making it stronger, says publisher Elisabeth Scharlatt. “We could maintain the quality of the books, while providing more muscle in terms of marketing and sales.”  Workman also made the important decision to keep Algonquin in Chapel Hill. “We have the best of both worlds,” Scharlatt acknowledges, “with a foot in North Carolina and a foot in New York.”

Rubin retired in 1991. Ravenel stepped away from her full-time role as editorial director in 2001 and now oversees books for Algonquin under her own imprint, working with authors like Julia Alvarez, Robert Morgan, Smith and McCorkle. The marketing focus began to encompass social media and online features to engage readers, as well as continuing to work with independent bookstores, a strategy that has been vital from the early days. The scope of books published broadened to a larger national canvass.

But the essentials remain. Algonquin is selective, but it supports its relatively few titles with vigor. “We are known for getting behind all the books we publish with all our marketing experience and sales clout,” says Stern.

And she and the editors are always seeking the highest quality when they review manuscripts. “We are looking for an original voice,” she says. “Many themes are similar, and so much depends on the way the story is told and the energy in the writing.”

Among Stern’s favorite Algonquin titles? One is Life After Life by McCorkle, her first novel in 17 years, which will appear in the spring. Although Algonquin has published many of McCorkle’s short story collections over the past three decades, her new novel is a major cause for celebration. “It’s the best thing she’s ever written,” enthuses Stern.

And so, with its enduring constants of excellent writing and a home in Chapel Hill, it seems that the best is yet to come for the little publishing house that could.  

Reprinted with permission from Chapel Hill Magazine

Mixed messages

            Most people I know wouldn’t dream of stepping on a plane without reading material for the flight. In the dark ages, that meant stuffing paperbacks in your carry-on; for many of us, this approach still works. Increasingly, of course, many travelers rely on e-readers for their convenience and ability to download and store untold numbers of books and other media.

            Two recent developments speak to these dual approaches to reading on the go.

            An FAA working group is considering relaxing the ban on portable electronic devices during takeoff and landing, according to The New York Times (June 21, 2013). The group is expected to endorse wider passengers’ use of tablets—which seems only fair, as pilots now routinely use an iPad in lieu of paper navigation guides in the cockpit.

            So what does this mean to you? An extra few minutes to finish that chapter or find out who-dun-it. Makes sense, assuming no safety hazard is involved.

            But at least one airline is celebrating and encouraging reading “real” books.

            Qantas, Australia’s largest airline, now offers a customized set of 10 paperbacks for its Platinum-level frequent flyers. The collection, according (again) to The New York Times, “includes thriller, satire, nonfiction, history, and romance titles designed to be read from start to finish during routes that last from one and a half to close to 24 hours.”

            What a great idea! Now, if the airlines would also consider that non-elite class passengers love to read, too…

            

The Poodles

The poodles           

Trying to write about The Broken Shore by Peter Temple frustrates me. The Australian mystery drove me crazy at the end, with too many names, too many pile-ups of events and revealed tales of past horror. And throughout, some of the Australian lingo interrupted the flow of reading, despite a glossary at the back.

            Still, still…the writing about place is lyrical. Listen, for instance to this passage:

            Rain suited Cromarty. In the old town, it turned the cobbled gutters to silver streams, darkened the bricks and stones and tiles, gave the leaves of the evergreen oaks a deep lustre.

            And the man can write about dogs. Not the easiest thing to do without getting bogged down into sentimentality or cuteness. Joe Cashin, the cop on temporary Sabbatical recovering from a life-threatening injury, is battling pain and anomie. What helps, what structures his days are his standard black poodles. That’s right, you heard me: poodles. But Joe’s dogs aren’t fussy, overly groomed show dogs—they are intelligent, athletic, eager to chase bunnies, and a deep comfort to this man who has frayed connections to the humans in his life.  Here, Temple describes the dogs’ eagerness to reach the kitchen for their evening chow after a vigorous walk in the hills:

            He walked the last stretch as briskly as he could, and, as he put his hand out to the gate they reached him. Their curly black heads tried to nudge him aside, insisting on entering first, strong black legs pushing. He unlatched the gate, they pushed it open enough to slip in, nose to tail, trotted down the path to the shed door. Both wanted to be first again, stood with furry tails up, furry scimitars, noses touching at the door jam.

Temple gets the doggie impatience and pushiness just right. Interestingly, he doesn’t name the dogs and never describes them individually. They are just “the dogs” or “the poodles.” Like a species or a tribe of their own. 

Woof

Mr. and Mrs. Dog

I am a fool for books about dogs. (Well, a fool for dogs—but that’s another story.) And I find very few dog books to my liking. The sentimental ones embarrass me. The silly ones annoy me.

But every once in awhile, I read a dog book that charms and enlightens me. Mr. and Mrs. Dog: Our Travels, Trials, Adventures, and Epiphanies by Donald McCaig is one such book. Despite its arch title, the book is a pleasure to read. McCaig reveals a great deal about his own gruff persona, as well as bringing us along on his bumpy road to the World Sheepdog Trials in Wales. The section on his travel challenges alone is worth the price of the book. Imagine the logistics of getting two 45-lb Border collies, June and Luke, two heavy dog crates, and a duffle bag through security at Dulles, onto an Air France flight, off the flight, through security at Charles de Gaulle, into a too-small Citroen, onto a ferry at Calais… not to mention voluminous paperwork, in English and French--the challenge must have been overwhelming, but reading about it is hilarious.

And after the nightmare trip, McCaig and June and Luke arrive in Wales for practice runs before the big event—and encounter endless rain and mud for days and days. Not to mention the horrors of driving on the “wrong” side of the narrow rural roads. Still, it is worth it to participate in this world-class sheepherding trial and to meet friends, old and new, in the world of sheepherding. McCaig brings all this alive to readers whose urban lives are light years away from the gritty reality of sheep farming and trialing.

Woven into his tale of the journey to Wales are vignettes with trainers of pet dogs, whose approaches to training vary wildly. His insights are typically acerbic and funny, but don’t particularly enrich his narrative. Doesn’t matter. The sheepdogs and the sheepdog trials are the thing, and he writes about that wonderfully.

As an aside, I had the pleasure of meeting McCaig recently when he talked about his book at my local independent bookstore, McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village. He is an avuncular fellow, just as gruff as his books would lead you to guess, but completely, authentically charming. Almost as charming as his “literary dog,” Joy who accompanied him on the book tour. But no one, really, can expect to beat a Border collie for charm.