Pale King: an editorial

I get the feeling someone at Hachette wanted an excuse to create a widget.

For months, Hachette Book Group has been counting down to the April 15 release of the late David Foster Wallace's unfinished novel, The Pale King. (A gimmick, see: the plot revolves around the IRS and, as everyone knows, April 15 is tax day.) Hence the counter above, which can be downloaded from the book page at Hachette.

So when word began spreading Wednesday morning that the novel was available on Amazon and the Barnes & Noble website two weeks before its "official" publication date, independent booksellers--yours truly among them--were left to wonder why the book was not yet on our shelves. (As if Amazon, with its predatory pricing scheme, needs the boost it surely got by having an in-demand book available before most retailers.)

So much for fair competition.

While it's not uncommon for books to be shipped and sold before their official publication date, there's reason enough in this case, given the cult status DFW has attained since his suicide in 2007, for even the NY Times to wade into the controversy with this article, in which several booksellers express their dismay at Hachette's seemingly underhanded (or, at best, willfully naive) act. In its defense, the publisher's representatives state that the official on-sale date of the book was, in fact, March 22, while the official publication date remained April 15. Confused yet?

What does this mean, other than the fact that you could buy the book online before you could buy it in your local bookstore? Should you, as a reader, be concerned that a publisher seems to be favoring corporations with histories of driving out locally owned businesses and bullying state governments in an effort to avoid paying state sales tax? Is the fact that an employee at Melville House, a publishing house led by the staunchly anti-Amazon Dennis Johnson, felt the need to confess (though I hope this is his April Fool's joke) to ordering the book from Amazon indicative of anything other than a guilty conscience over just how desperate we've become for instant gratification?

A few weeks back, Pete blogged about Borders' demise and the efforts independent booksellers everywhere are making to remain viable, vital businesses--places, really--within their communities, places where people meet, where ideas are discussed and serendipity encouraged, and one of the few retail environments that invites its customers to spend hours at a time browsing. Hachette's seeming disregard for this aspect of bookselling and community has left a bad taste in my mouth. If you feel the same, I encourage you to voice your displeasure to the publisher's Customer Service department.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with an anecdote: earlier this afternoon, while restocking the displays, I overheard a conversation between two strangers standing in front of The Pale King (yes, we got our copies--on Friday) about how they'd been waiting for this book for months. Turns out this is the sort of thing that washes a bit of that bad taste out of my mouth.

The Pale King arrives

Come and get it.

The Bookstore in Venom: Lethal Protector #3

Last week I made a brief sojourn back to the home I grew up in. There I found a box of old comic books that I probably hadn't opened in over a decade. After fumbling through a nostalgic miscellany composed mostly of tattered Spider-Man comics and old single issues of Bone I discovered something that made me laugh, and serendipitously goes along with Sparks' recent post regarding Green Apple's mention amidst many of the pages of our product.

In April of 1993 Spider-Man nemesis Venom took a trip to San Francisco (I was nine then, in case you were wondering), and guess which address he just happened to roll out from underneath a garbage truck in front of!


Okay, so the background is obviously based on New York City rather than SF, I don't ever remember there being trees planted along Clement Street, and there sure as heck aren't a bunch of brick buildings around here, but that definitely looks like a bookstore that he's bounding in front of. Maybe our neighbor Pacific Books? Well in that case then the awning next door has got to be ours. See it? See it? I'm calling it like it is. Nuff said, eh true believers?

Poem of the Week by Joe Brainard

Happy Monday. The poem, this week, is only sort of a poem. It's an excerpt from a book-length work I Remember by Joe Brainard. Paul Auster said this "modest little gem will endure. In simple, forthright, declarative sentences, [Brainard] charts the map of the human soul and permanently alters the way we look at the world." From pages 133-134:

I remember my mother picking up tiny specks of lint off things.

I remember, at the end of the sofa, a group of four little pillows that had only one casual arrangement.

I remember that no one sat on the sofa (light beige) unless we had company.

I remember (very vaguely) hearing my mother tell a story about an old lady across the street who died, and the people who moved in after her complaining becuase they could never quite get rid of "the smell."

I remember horrible visions of that island where lepers were sent.

I remember "the green stuff" inside my first lobster.

I remember (ugh) white nurse shoes.

I remember trying to visualize "the travels" of shit, after you flush the toilet.

What do you remember?