Bookhampton is sponsoring a mystery festival in the Hamptons the weekend of May 15th, with forty or so writers wandering around their various shops. I'll be at their Sag Harbor store on Saturday at 3 pm, alongside Lee Child, Andrew Gross, and Jonathan Santolofer. Full schedule is here. Should be a lot of fun.
With the Edgars fast approaching, I've done a few interviews in the past week or so (perhaps the best thing about having a book nominated for an award is the way it gives the book a second wind...). You can read my interview with blogger Lesa Holstine here. The Writer Magazine has Q&A's with all of the best first novel Edgar nominees (although you have to complete their free registration to view them).
Cure was also recently reviewed in the Florida Bar Journal.
To my knowledge, this is the only review of the audiobook version of Cure. Its a nice review, focusing both on the substance of the book and on the audio aspect (the book is read by James Colby).
I confess that I've never actually listened to an audio book. Not that I have anything against them. I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that most people who listen to audio books do so in their cars, and all of my work commuting has been via subway.
I tried to listen to my own audiobook, but was quickly weirded out and stopped after five minutes. There wasn't anything wrong with the reading (the one person I know whose listened to it tells me that Colby does a great job), just that I found the experience of listening to my own book completely unnerving.
I'm thrilled to note that my novel has been nominated for the Strand Magazine's Critics Award for best first novel. This is a new award -- I believe this is the second year -- with nominees selected by reviewers at some of the leading newspapers and magazines. It's a great list, and its humbling to see my name alongside such fantastic writers.
Interesting to see that three of my four fellow nominees are not American authors. I've always heard that American publishing (and readers) showed much less interest in books from abroad than is the case in most other countries. But I don't think there's any doubt that the highest-profile U.S. debut of the year in the crime category was the late Stieg Larsson's, and Child 44 was likely the second.
When future historians trace the migration of the written word from print to the internet, today will be a contender for the tipping point. (I'm sure there are many more such days to come...) After 146 years as a newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (known as the P-I) has announced that it is publishing its final newspaper, but that it will continue on as a web site. But make no mistake, the online version of the P-I will be a very different thing from the newspaper it has been, as the New York Times reports: "the P-I ... will resemble a local Huffington Post more than a traditional newspaper, with a news staff of about 20 people rather than the 165 it has had, and a site consisting mostly of commentary, advice and links to other news sites, along with some original reporting."
I used to work as an in-house lawyer for the Hearst Corporation, focusing primarily on working with the company's newspapers. During that time I worked very closely with the P-I's newsroom. The editors and reporters there were first rate, personally and professionally. So I feel the loss of the P-I personally, but am also worried about where such losses will leave us.
The P-I is not the first regional newspaper to fail as this severe recession comes on top of what has already been a terrible few years on the business side of newspapers. Just a couple of weeks ago, the Rocky Mountain News closed down entirely after 150 years. The P-I is however the first such paper to try and make the switch to continuing as a web-only publication.
I fear that people outside the journalism community are still not realizing the catastrophic nature of such a change. This is in no way a Luddite's stand: I love the internet, and get most of my news from it. Bloggers and citizen journalists can and have done things that newspaper can't or hadn't. If newspapers could cease printing physical papers and migrate fully to the web while still fully functioning I would have little concern. But there's absolutely no sign that they can pull this off.
Why does it matter? Because however imperfect they may be, newspapers are still this country's only consistent source of actual investigative journalism. Such journalism takes resources, it takes expertise, and it takes a lot of time. I've never been an investigative reporter, but I had the opportunity to work closely with a number of them as a newsroom lawyer, and have a fairly good idea of the amount of work that goes in to a significant piece of investigative reporting. It is vitally important to a functioning society to have it. And I'm deeply worried that we're in the midst of putting it out of business.
But as Clay Shirkey writes in a perceptive recent essay on this subject: "'You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!' has never been much of a business model." Shirkey is clearly more optimistic than I am that something will arise out of the internet -- even if no one yet know what -- that will fill whatever void is left by the death of newspapers. Similarly, Steven Johnson recently gave a thought-provoking speech on the subject. While I agree with much of what they say, my concern is that neither Shirkey nor Johnson seems to show much understanding of what actual investigative journalism consists of, and therefore they overestimate the ways that bloggers and the like can duplicate it.
For example, Johnson compares the Sunday New York Times' City section to the numerous blogs that cover the city's neighborhoods and finds the latter far superior. This is true, but is hardly an argument that the vital newsgathering role of the New York Times has been supplanted by blogs. After all, judging the New York Times by the City section is a little like judging NBC by what it airs between 2 am and 4 am. Blogs and so-called hyper-local news sites are great, and an important addition. If I want to know what people are saying about the new noddle joint that opened up the street from me, I hit the Brooklyn blogs. But true investigative journalism still largely belongs to newspapers, and I don't see who is going to replace them at it if they go.
Here's some assorted recent news and reviews I haven't gotten around to posting. The Richmond Times-Dispatch recently weighed in with a round-up review that included Cure, using nice words like "stellar" and saying the book "really soars" in its courtroom scenes. (They also included Chelsea Cain's Sweetheart, which came out around the same time as Cure. Better late than never...)
A nice review by criminal defense lawyer and legal commentator Peter Elikann (I have a soft spot for reviews by attorneys, but that is a digression for another post) recently ran in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, but is only available on-line to subscribers. Along similar lines to an earlier posting of mine, it discusses how Cure is not a legal thriller, but rather "a thoughtful courtroom procedural that examines the inner workings of the legal process with its accompanying moral issues." It goes on to say that: "Peacock accurately captures the bleak, almost mournful, gritty realism of the underpaid public defenders as they inhabit this sullied world where they sometimes see the truly innocent found guilty and the first-time drug offender, given a break and allowed to get treatment, haplessly mess up and squander his opportunities."
Lastly, the trade paperback of Cure will be published by Vintage/Black Lizard this fall (apparently on October 6, though I don't know if that's set in stone...). (Here's the formal Vintage listing; here's the more edgy Black Lizard one...)
I also promised thoughts, so here goes: I haven't been posting much to this blog in the last couple of months, primarily because its original purpose -- to serve as a news and reviews clearinghouse for Cure -- has pretty much run its course. I'd been thinking about whether I wanted to continue it, and if so what I wanted it to be. I do want to keep it going, and have resolved to start posting more frequently, but to free the blog from having any Cure-related focus, as the book's initial publication was, amazingly, just over six months ago.
I've genuinely enjoyed having the blog. Moreover, I think that blogs and web sites will only become more important for writers of books, and that this is, on the whole, a good thing. I know that when I come across an author who sounds interesting, I turn to the Internet to find out more. For example, I read Janet Maslin's very enthusiastic review of Olen Steinhauer's The Tourist this morning and promptly googled him. I quickly came across his blog, Contemporary Nomad. The blog is interesting and insightful, and served to confirm my interest in Steinhauer's work. It struck me once again that an author blog is an ideal way for a writer to interact with readers and potential readers. Readings and book signings and panels have their place, of course, but what better way to interact with a writer than through the written word?
So I plan on writing more frequently, and also far more widely. Stay tuned for blog 2.0!
I'm very surprised to still have the occasional Cure-related news to report...
We've recently sold Cure to a French publisher. Don't know yet when it will actually appear in France, but am looking forward to seeing it (though my French is not good enough to actually read it...). There's something really cool to me about the book appearing in a foreign language.
Also, I was interviewed last week by Above the Law, an always-entertaining "legal tabloid." It's certainly the first time in my life that someone has referred to me as "living the dream"...
As is probably always the case after giving an unscripted interview, there are a couple of things I would say slightly differently if I had a do-over. Specifically, my answer to the question as to what advice I would give aspiring authors is both a little muddled and not entirely accurate of what I actually think. (To be clear, I'm not saying I was misquoted, I'm saying I wasn't articulate.) First of all, I don't actually know if most books that deserve to get published actually are, and don't know why I said such a thing. The point I was trying to make was just that in my experience agents and editors are smart and hard-working, and that as hard and frustrating as attempting to get published is for writers, and as tempting as it therefore is to vilify agents and editors, most of them are doing the very best they can at jobs that are both difficult and incredibly subjective.
But lazy and/or incompetent agents certainly can and do kill a book's chances. My novel racked up a lot of rejections, and it was my great fortune to have an agent who was the very definition of tenacious when the chips were down. But I have known other unpublished writers who signed with agents who quickly flaked out on them after their manuscripts didn't immediately sell, and if I'd ended up with such an agent my book would not have been published. Unpublished writers generally cross their fingers when it comes to signing with an agent, which is just one of the ways that blind luck enters into getting published.
Also, when I said that aspiring writers shouldn't focus on writing something publishable, I was referring to not doing so while teaching yourself the craft of writing. If you're writing a novel with the goal of publishing it, I certainly think you should learn as much about the publishing market as possible, and have a good idea where your work potentially fits into that marketplace. Publishing is a business, after all, and the idea is to publish books that people will actually buy...
So I began today with the lovely news that "A Cure for Night" has been nominated for an Edgar Award for best first novel. It truly is an honor just to be nominated, and I'm sure the ceremony will be a night to remember...
My day was darkened by the news that John Mortimer has passed away. I've long admired the Rumpole stories, and Mortimer lived an extraordinary life as both a lawyer and an author. R.I.P.
Book columnist Oline Cogdill presents her favorite novels of the year this weekend, with A Cure for Night as one of her four favorite debuts. Again, there's a lot of books and authors on here that I haven't read and no doubt should. But I have to stop buying new books until I get through the stack of unread books I already have at home...
The Washington Post named A Cure for Night one of the best books of the year today. Looking over the list, I'm struck by how many good novels get published in a given year -- there's a number of books on here that I want to read. There's also some realy good books I read this year that didn't make their list.
