Blood & Rhetoric

New York Magazine asks: So why didn’t anyone at a big publishing house recognize the best-selling genius of The Shack, William P. Young’s million-selling Christian-publishing sensation profiled today in the Times?

Apparantly William P. Young submitted his manuscript for The Shack to several secular and Christian publishers only to be rejected and forced into self-publishing.

Personally, I wouldn’t pick up a novel touted as Christian (or Buddhist, or Muslim, or Atheist) for the same reason I wouldn’t pick up the Bible or insert-religious-text-here: I’m not in the market to have The Message shoved down my throat.

Now, a novel with Christian themes (or Buddhist, or Muslim, or Atheist, or whatever) is a different story, but I’m weary of things that would proclaim themselves into any religious category as I’d instantly suspect the work in question to less about the story and more about The Dreaded Message.

Anyways, good for William P. Young. A self-publishing success story? That is impressive.

In other news: The Motley Fool has an interesting article about Making Books Interesting Again.

And two 21-year-old women pen a 400 page fantasy novel, Havemercy, in just 18 days — and sell it!

Danielle Bennett, from Victoria, and Jaida Jones, from New York, managed to attract the attention of a major publishing house with a fantasy novel featuring flying metal dragons, magicians and an all-out battle between warring rivals.

This is guaranteed to bring me to tears every time I read it. 

From “The English Patient” by Michael Ondaatje:

And all the names of the tribes, the nomads of faith who walked in the monotone of the desert and saw brightness and faith and colour. The way a stone or found metal box or bone can become loved and turned eternal in a prayer. Such glory of this country she enters now and becomes part of.

We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography — to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.

All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.I carried Katharine Clifton into the desert,where there is the communal book of moonlight. We were among the rumour of wells. In the palace of winds.

Wow. James Frey has emerged from the Cave of Shunned Literary Aspirations and Tears (yes, it’s a real place) to write yet another work of fiction and HarperCollins is releasing it!

“There will be a lively media response to the book, but we’re publishing it because it is an extraordinary piece of work,” said Jonathan Burnham, publisher of the Harper imprint. “He has a huge number of fans. They will come readily and eagerly to this novel, which is emotionally powerful.”

Bright Shiny Morning (released next week) is described as thus as Amazon:

“One of the most celebrated and controversial authors in America delivers his first novel—a sweeping chronicle of contemporary Los Angeles that is bold, exhilarating, and utterly original.

Dozens of characters pass across the reader’s sight lines—some never to be seen again—but James Frey lingers on a handful of LA’s lost souls and captures the dramatic narrative of their lives: a bright, ambitious young Mexican-American woman who allows her future to be undone by a moment of searing humiliation; a supremely narcissistic action-movie star whose passion for the unattainable object of his affection nearly destroys him; a couple, both nineteen years old, who flee their suffocating hometown and struggle to survive on the fringes of the great city; and an aging Venice Beach alcoholic whose life is turned upside down when a meth-addled teenage girl shows up half-dead outside the restroom he calls home.

Throughout this strikingly powerful novel there is the relentless drumbeat of the millions of other stories that, taken as a whole, describe a city, a culture, and an age. A dazzling tour de force, Bright Shiny Morning illuminates the joys, horrors, and unexpected fortunes of life and death in Los Angeles.”

I must admit, I’m a little confused by whole “celebrated author” thing. He’s really one of our most celebrated authors? What the fuck? And kudos for using “controversial” in the cool, noncomformist sense of the word. Like he’s our wee little literary rebel.

Although I have no intention of actually reading this, I am excited. Mostly because I honestly thought Frey would commit suicide after the way Oprah guilt tripped him on her show. Personally, I would have been in tears. She’s a scary woman.

Good for you Jamie (can I call you that?)

I can only hope a similar scandal will one day help me skyrocket in the bestseller charts and to be mentioned in every literary magazine and blog.

Well played, sir, well played.