Generally Horrible Questions: Katie Adams

The giant beer is a dead giveaway that this woman
is an editor....

I met Katie a few years ago, when Other Press became a distribution client for Random House (which means that the RH sales force handles the rep duties and our warehouse ships the books) and Katie attended sales conference.  I find the Other Press list of titles and staff invigorating--new voices, fresh perspectives, and a lot of energy make them a joy to represent.  Katie is one of those people who starts talking about the book she's working on and her enthusiasm is contagious; because of this infectious joy I'm willing to overlook that she roots for the Red Sox and has never made me brownies.  She doesn't know that she's supposed to make me brownies, mind you, but why should I have to state my needs so explicitly?  She reads this blog (She's our fan! Possibly the only one remaining!).  She knows I'm not right in the head.  Anyway, in the last year Katie left Other Press to accept a job with Liveright, a newly re-formed division of Norton, but in spite of her abandonment she was still good enough to answer our horrible questions.  She's our first editor....she might have been drunk when she agreed.

Generally Horrible Questions: Katie Adams

1. How’d you become an editor? Tell us your life story.
The long story is a boring one: lifelong reader, naturally bossy, etc. But the crucial lucky break came when I was a senior at Columbia. I was taking a graduate seminar on Dickens, and one of the grad students asked me about my plans after graduation. I murmured vague thoughts about publishing, and she said, “Oh, I used to be an editorial assistant at FSG, give them my name and get an internship there during your final semester.” At the time I’d never even heard of FSG (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, one of the absolute best houses in the business, as I quickly learned), but after a few days of typing out permissions forms for Robert Lowell poems and photocopying Michael Cunningham’s new novel, I was hooked. [For those keeping track, Katie has mentioned Columbia University, graduate seminars, Dickens, FSG, and Robert Lowell.  We love a woman who embraces her nerdiness so openly.]

What book do you point to with pride and think “I worked on that?”
Well, I’ve been so lucky – I’m proud of all the books I’ve had a hand in, whether as an editorial assistant, desk editor, or acquiring editor. But my first real pinch-me moment was probably when Claire Messud wrote a glowing full-page of Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, my first acquisition, in the New York Times. An intellectual endorsement from Messud (a genius) about a book on Virginia Woolf (possibly the greatest English writer since Shakespeare): “an absorbing and complex portrait of Woolf’s particular relation to domestics and domesticity.” Heaven. [Here's the problem--there's too much we like about this statement to mock it.  Virginia Woolf?  LOVE.  Claire Messud?  LOVE (and she has a new novel coming next spring!).  Katie's really short.  We're also starting a rumor that she has six toes on her left foot.  Spread the word.]

What are the best and worst moments in your editorial career?
The absolute worst (so far) was probably when I was an editorial assistant. I sent a deal memo, which contains all of the nitty gritty – and might I add, confidential – details about an author’s book deal, to the wrong person. I meant to send it to the foreign publisher with whom we’d done the deal, but instead I sent it to a fierce literary agent with the same first name, who must have thought she could do even better by the author, because she later picked him up as a client! That was a lay-face-down-on-the-office-floor moment. But really one of the hardest parts of the job is the books that get away, for whatever reason, and then it’s death by a thousand cuts as they come out to rave reviews. ["The books that get away"--is this code for Fifty Shades of Grey?]

Bests, I’ve had a few. Michael Crummey is one of my favorite authors, and when I found out that he hadn’t read Moby Dick (the horror – his latest book features a whale for God’s sake!) I immediately rushed him a copy. Not only did he love it, he wrote a beautiful essay  about reading it. I felt I’d given a little something back to him after his book had given me so much. But there are smaller moments as well. Just last week an author from my last job emailed to say that his daughter had been accepted to her first choice college. I love these personal tidbits I get as the relationship deepens, and I was so thrilled for this proud papa. [Zorro pooped in his litter box for the first time in four years last week!  Send me brownies!]

Any author gossip that you’re willing to reveal? Don’t worry—no one reads this blog.
Ha! If there’s one thing I know about authors, it’s that they find any and every mention of themselves online. [Exactly!  We need the hits from people other than the ones searching Google for free porn!  Tell tales!  Make stuff up.  We certainly do.  Gianna and E.L. James are the same person.]

As a Red Sox fan, describe in detail how much you hate the Yankees. Feel free to rationalize the designated hitter rule for us too; we’re National League fans.
The Yankees are the guy at the bar who hits on you so loudly and so publicly that you can’t tell if he’s actually serious. His ego is performance art. Depending on your answer, he’ll either perform the swaggering jerk that gets the girl, or he’ll perform the impervious couldn’t-care-less reject, but regardless it will be ALL ABOUT HIM. That’s the Yankees. [We were just going to say that they're assholes.]

As an impartial sports fan of New England descent, Astros or Cubs?
I used to empathize with the Cubs, but now I’m kinda mad at Theo Epstein [former Red Sox GM who is now the Cubs GM], plus the Astros no longer suffer under the curse of Roger Clemens, so…Astros. [And Liz's love for Katie lives on....]

What book(s) made you squeal with delight and led you into the dark world of publishing?

The true first would have to be Mickey Mouse’s Picnic, which my sainted mother read to me thousands upon thousands of times. Then it’s a straight line through Where the Red Fern Grows, Mrs. Mike, The Thorn Birds, Persuasion, To the Lighthouse, Bartleby the Scrivener, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Hours, Olive Kitteridge. Or so I say today. [First, Mickey Mouse is the evil overlord that has oppressed the maligned Donald Duck for decades.  Liz is quite serious about this topic.  Curse you for your duck bigotry.  The other books on your list, though, make us happy.]

What are you working on now that has you excited?
Oh so much good stuff. There’s a work of history called For Adam’s Sake, slated for next spring, which reads like Downton Abbey set in 17th century Connecticut. There’s a beautiful, crushing memoir coming next April called My Foreign Cities, about a young couple who, due to illness, have to live their whole marriage in the ten years they know they’ll have together. And a truly fabulous novel called The Last Summer of the Camperdowns about a young girl, a long summer, and a big secret. [Spoiler: she has cooties?] It’s the perfect summer book: “That dear old house. If there is a heaven, I will spend eternity on the back porch, sipping ice tea and eating radish and mayonnaise sandwiches, listening to the birds chirp, watching the mulberries ripen, hearing the waves roll in, reading Sun Tzu when my father is looking; Trixie Belden when he isn’t.” I have the best job in the world. [And cooties.]

You’re married to an editor. Tell the truth: are you better?
It really depends on what you mean by better. I’m definitely more emotional/obsessive about work (and everything), which can drive my authors crazy or make them feel like centers of the universe. But my brilliant husband is utterly unflappable, a crucial piece of the job for which I’m still searching. Also, when we took a sample Wonderlic test (given to college athletes to determine intelligence before they turn pro) my husband scored higher. And he’s also taller. I appreciate this question because it gets at the goal of marriage, which is to determine a winner and a loser. [Exactly.  We're sure you're aware that the Liz and Gianna battle for supremacy rages on.]

Liz or Gianna?
Liz picked Galore as her favorite book of 2011. For that, Liz would also win against either or both of my parents. [Excellent.  And the answer, of course, is always Liz.]

Gilda?  She's a bitch.  How could one NOT choose Zorro?

Liz’s cat Zorro or Gianna’s dog Gilda?
Gilda! Cats are too judgmental. [...You're dead to me (liz).  Unless you send brownies.]

What are your biggest grammatical pet peeves? And what’s your position on the Oxford comma?
Your/you’re. Its/it’s. Two complete sentences joined by “and” but no punctuation. YES to the Oxford comma. Long may it reign. It’s one thing to cast aside these rules in an email, but in your manuscript…for heaven’s sake! [Most of our emails disregard all punctuation and are typed as abbreviations...like "TWSS" for "That's what she said.  Most of our email correspondence is a violation of multiple codes of conduct.  Or involves poop.]

Will you edit Liz and Gianna: A Joint Memoir? We guarantee nudity and violence.

Liveright published this book.
I think it's about a dump
or something.

Only if the book jacket can look like the movie posters for Face/Off. [Absolutely!  GIANNA IS JUST LIKE JOHN TRAVOLTA...or rather, just like his masseur.  She confessed that if Travolta offered her $400, she'd make him a regular client.  She's classy like that.  Also the Face/Off cover would be ideal since we look so much alike.]

Tell us about Liveright, the new line at Norton.
Liveright is the rebirth of one of the great names in publishing. Boni & Liveright (later just Liveright) had a remarkable heyday in the 1920s and 30s. Led by boozy, chorus-girl chasing, literary savant-whisperer Horace Liveright, they published a remarkable array of stars including T.S. Eliot, Anita Loos, Theodore Dreiser, Dorothy Parker, Hart Crane, early Hemingway, early Faulkner etc etc etc. W.W. Norton bought it decades ago and decided to re-launch it this year in order to bring back some of the Liveright classics (books like My Life by Isadora Duncan and The Theater of E.E. Cummings) and to recognize and further draw upon the talents of my amazing boss – a legend in his own right – Bob Weil. [With the Liz and Gianna memoir on the list, you'll be legendary yourself.  What is the record for fastest career-ender for an editor?  Judith Regan with the OJ Simpson book?  We can top that. Gianna's even a boozy, chorus girl.]

Thanks Katie!

(By the way--the best thing about harassing an editor?  All of her answers were spelled properly.  Gianna would never send in a blog post with such polish.)

Best of 2011: The Complete Lists

Now that our countdown has concluded, here are the full lists.  Thanks to everyone for following us and for tolerating our bookish adventures this year.  Don't forget that we're also on Facebook (search "Liz and Gianna's Adventures in Book Land" and like us) and Twitter (@AdvinBookLand).

Gianna's Top 30 Books of 2011:

1.  The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
2.  Blue Nights by Joan Didion
3.  Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
4.  Bright's Passage by Josh Ritter
5.  The Storm at the Door by Stefan Merrill Block
6.  Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner
7.  Blood, Bones, & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
8.  The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
9.  The Informationist by Taylor Stevens
10. Timeless Mexico by Hugo Brehme and Susan Toomey Frost
11. Chinaberry Sidewalks by Rodney Crowell
12. The Journals of Spalding Gray by Spalding Gray
13. Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie
14. Open City by Teju Cole
15. Hard Ground by Michael O'Brien and Tom Waits
16. The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
17. The End of Country by Seamus McGraw
18. Lime Creek by Joe Henry
19. Trillin on Texas by Calvin Trillin
20. Red on Red by Edward Conlon
21. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
22. My Lucky Life by Dick Van Dyke
23. Austin Chronicle Music Anthology edited by Austin Powell and Doug Freeman
24. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
25. Awkward Family Pet Photos by Mike Bender and Doug Chernack
26. Close Your Eyes by Amanda Eyre Ward
27. The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin
28. Don't Make Me Go to Town by Rhonda Lashley Lopez
29. The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
30. West of 98 edited by Lynn Stegner and Russell Rowland

And the far superior Liz's Top 30 Books of 2011:

1.  Galore by Michael Crummey
2.  Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
3.  The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
4.  The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
5.  Habibi by Craig Thompson
6.  The Upright Piano Player by David Abbott
7.  The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
8.  Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
9.  Chinaberry Sidewalks by Rodney Crowell
10. The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
11. Blue Nights by Joan Didion
12. Van Gogh by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
13. Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch
14. Zone One by Colson Whitehead
15. The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
16. The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst
17. Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie
18. Moondogs by Alexander Yates
19. Daughters of the Revolution by Carolyn Cooke
20. Snowdrops by A.D. Miller
21. Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard
22. Into the Silence by Wade Davis
23. Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close
24. Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin
25. Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner
26. Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest
27. The Gap Year by Sarah Bird
28. Hemingway's Boat by Paul Hendrickson
29. The Snowman by Jo Nesbo
30. Jerusalem by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Best of 2011 Countdown: #1

We've arrived at our #1 books of 2011!  Pop the bubbly and raise a glass (of Diet Coke, of course, as it sure as hell tastes better than champagne).

Gianna:

The Tiger's Wife
Tea Obreht
Random House

Okay, so you’re not surprised. You had to be a little surprised that a first novel is at the top of my list (or at least surprised that so many first novels were in the list to begin with). 

Tea Obreht

I’ve talked about this book so much that I almost thought it was a 2010 book. I know I’ve said this before but I rarely read a book more than once, and certainly don’t read a book more than once in the span of just a few months. But that is exactly what I did with The Tiger’s Wife. I don’t know if I did it because I wanted to check myself; I had been going on and on about this book to anyone who would listen and maybe wanted to verify it before I looked like a complete idiot. Yeah, turns out I missed so much of this magical, layered, rich, beautiful book the first time around that a second reading just made me talk about it even more. Annoying right? [Incredibly.] In short, this novel is about a young doctor trying to navigate her way after the death of her beloved grandfather who was once a well respected doctor himself. It is filled with amazing stories, fables, and history. This is a novel that you will never forget; it will live on your shelf forever (and I am sorry but this is a book you must have in physical form, some books are just too good for e-readers only…and I will die on that hill).

Tea Obreht is an extraordinary writer, a genius.

This was one of the last books I sold when I was with Random House, and I just can’t help but think how incredibly lucky I was to have that opportunity.


Liz:


Galore
Michael Crummey
Other Press


For those people not in the book industry or unfamiliar with the various alignments of publishing houses, allow me a moment of explanation.  In my capacity as a district sales manager for Random House Inc, I sell both publishing groups owned by Random House--Knopf, Doubleday, Vintage/Anchor, etc--and I also sell books from independent presses that contract with Random House for distribution services.  Other Press is one of those smaller presses, one that specializes in literary fiction and nonfiction.  The press publishes books that challenge readers as well as entertain and educate, and the team working for Other Press regularly manages to find surprising, wonderful books from around the world.  My top pick for 2011 is one of those books.

Michael Crummey

Sometimes as a reader you just have to let go of the reins and go where the story takes you.  In the case of Galore, that place is Paradise Deep, a remote fishing village in Newfoundland so removed from the rest of the country that the only Bible in town is half a book that was found inside a fish that was obviously hungry for the Word.  Galore starts with a beached whale, and as the citizens of Paradise Deep begin to break down the beast, they find a man, naked and bleached, inside of the belly.  While they stand around making fun of the size of the man's genitalia (and you know that's what Gianna and I would be doing), the man moves.  He is alive, he smells like rotten fish, and he has no back story.  The people name him Judah--after a debate about whether Jonah or Judas was the biblical whale bait and a compromise--and he becomes a constant in this story of multiple generations and diverse characters.  I compare Galore to other favorite books--the storytelling magic of The Hakawati, the folklorish charm of Maritime Canada in The Shipping News.  The wonderful cast of characters reminds me of the town people in the Dutch movie Antonia's Line, one of my favorite movies ever.  


While Galore was published in the United States in 2011, it was an earlier release in Canada. There it won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best Book, the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award, and was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction.  It's full of mythology and sea yarns and terrific characters.  It's a book that I would love to see illustrated because Michael Crummey creates so many amazing images that have lingered in my mind all year. Oh, and you know I love my Canadian fiction.  Galore is my favorite book of the year.

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 24

Day 24: Book That Contains Your Favorite Scene

Gianna:

This was a really tough question. I sat on this one for a few days, in fact, going back and forth on a few of my favorite books. I finally decided I would abandon all of those books and concentrate on what books really gave me joy or meant a lot to me more recently and I just kept coming back to one book that I find myself talking about often. It was also one of my favorite books of 2010. Of course now I would have to pick a favorite scene from this book that has many great scenes in it – so this too caused another issue. The book is This Time Together by sweet, sweet Carol Burnett. There are so many laugh out loud (seriously) moments in this book, but pages 57 -59 are my favorite. Carol is just hitting it big and her grandmother is in the hospital due to a heart attack. Burnett is told that her grandmother would be fine so she stays in NY and does not fly home to LA, but has asked her cousin (Cuz) to check in on “Nanny” in the hospital. Her cousin checks in on her every day. One day the cousin walks out of the elevator to see a long line of people waiting in the hall, some even in costumes and reading Hollywood trade magazines. The line went all the way to Nanny’s door.

From the book:

Cuz pushed through the crowd. “Excuse me! I’m her grand-daughter!” She eventually managed to reach the door and open it. There sat Nanny, propped up in bed, being entertained by a little girl in a tutu who was tap-dancing and doing some baton twirling, accompanied by her father on a harmonica playing “Dixie.” The child ended with a spectacular split and a great big “TA DA,” arms up in the air, the baton twirling on one finger.


Nanny said, “Thank you. I’ll tell Carol about you. Now send in the next one, please.”


Cuz looked at her dumbfounded. “Nanny, what in the world is all this about?”


Nanny shrugged and smiled. “I got bored.”

There are some other good Nanny stories in here but fake auditioning people is pretty great. Some people just dream of doing things like this… she actually did it.

Anyway, I just loved this book cover to cover.

Liz:

I chose a scene from a book I've read more recently.  An early contender for my favorite book of 2011 is the novel Galore by Michael Crummey.  I LOVE this book about an isolated fishing village in Newfoundland that spans 200 years.  It's storytelling magic.  And I'm open about my Canada obsession, but I'd love this book if it were set on the coast of Argentina, or the coast of Italy, or the coast of a Japanese island.  It's an extra treat that it's Canadian.  I was supposed to read an excerpt of Galore for work and I dutifully picked it up before my sales conference and plunged in.  Because I had about 20 other books to read, though, I hadn't planned to read the whole book at that time; I just needed the flavor of it for conference.  There's a scene at the beginning of the book, though, that sold me whole hog and I neglected my other responsibilities for two days while I submerged myself into the world of some wonderful scenes and characters.  I love everything about this book.

Here's the scene--

At the beginning of Galore, a whale washes up on shore in the coastal village of Paradise Deep, and the townspeople gather around the whale to discuss what's to be done with the corpse.  Some of the fishermen begin to dismantle the body, but then they are shocked to discover a man--stinking of fish and naked--in the belly of the whale.  The villagers are appalled and fascinated...and cattily remarking upon the small penis size of the dead man in the whale.  I love this--I would totally be the one cracking wiener jokes at such a moment.  But then the dead man moves.  He's still breathing, and though the villagers don't know how to react to such a phenomenon, they dress him and try to talk to him, discover his story.  He's mute.  They have to call him something, though, and so the villagers settle on "Judah;" they only have half a Bible in Paradise Deep (the product of another belly-of-a-fish discovery) and no one can remember if it's Jonah or Judas found in the belly of the Biblical whale. 

I love this scene because it rings true to human nature, and it establishes a sense of the miraculous among the mundane, and it captures the underlying humor found everywhere.  It perfectly sets the tone for the book.  Of course I had to discover Judah's story and immerse myself in the lore of Paradise Deep.  I wish I were more artistic; I would draw the scenes from Michael Crummey's novel a la Rockwell Kent.  And seriously, you need to be reading Galore.  This won't be the last time I mention it.