Following a string of reviews, Joyce Carol Oates takes on American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld in Sunday’s NYT BR. The book has since risen to #16 on Amazon’s bestseller list. Holds in libraries have also increased significantly.

Like the other reviewers, Oates finds the portrait of Alice/Laura  more compelling than that of Charlie/George W. 

Unlike other reviewers, she sees a metaphor in the book (which she says Sittenfeld surely did not intend);

the “American wife” is in fact the American people, or at least those millions of Americans who voted for a less-than-qualified president in two elections — the all-forgiving enabler for whom the bromide “love” excuses all.

 

American Wife

Curtis Sittenfeld

• Hardcover: $26.00
• Publisher: Random House (September 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1400064759
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064755

• Audio CD: Abridged, $34.95
• Reader: Kimberly Farr
• Publisher: Random House; (September 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0739323865
• ISBN-13: 978-0739323861

Stephenie Meyer announced on her site yesterday that she has shelved plans for Midnight Sun, a retelling of the Twilight Saga from Edward’s point of view. She says she made the decision because a partial draft was posted on the web without her permission, which she considers “a huge violation of my rights as an author, not to mention me as a human being.”

Wrting about it poses a dilemma;

I’d rather my fans not read this version of Midnight Sun…the writing is messy and flawed and full of mistakes. But how do I comment on this violation without driving more people to look for the illegal posting?

In the end, she decided to post the draft on her site so her fans “don’t have to make a sacrifice to stay honest.”

In his review of Louis Bayard’s The Black Tower in today’s Wall Street Journal, Robert Hughes says the author “has emerged as a writer of historical thrillers in the vein of Caleb Carr.”

The current Entertainment Weekly calls it “delicious.” Set in Paris in 1818, the book concerns a “sad-sack hero” whose life is changed by a flamboyant figure,  based on the legendary French detective Eugène François Vidocq. Marilyn Stasio, in her 8/22 NYT review says,

The real-life Vidocq was unmatched as a figure of romantic legend. On the run as a thief, he offered his services to the law, becoming so adept at catching criminals that in 1811 he was named the first chief of the Sûreté, whose detective ranks he filled with former miscreants like himself.

Vidocq is determined to figure out if Marie Antoinette’s son really died in prison, or if he can still find him alive.

There are few holds showing in libraries I checked, so readers advisory librarians may actually have an opportunity to put the book into customer’s hands.

• Hardcover: $24.95
• Publisher: William Morrow (August 26, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0061173509
• ISBN-13: 978-0061173509

Oh, boy! It’s Michiko Kakutani taking on American Wife in the NYT today. You can almost hear the knife being sharpened.

But, hold on, the Mikey of book reviewers kind of likes it!

Turns out author Sittenfeld, who hates George W. Bush, likes his wife (she wrote an essay for Salon in January, 2004 called Why I love Laura Bush) and does a “nimble Job” of getting under Laura’s skin. She creates some imaginative scenes — “her account of a family gathering at the family’s Kennebunkport-like vacation home is wickedly hilarious” — but when she writes about George W., the author, begins “using [her] heroine as a sock puppet for her own views on the unhappy tenure of the Bush administration.”

Kakutani relates the book to Joe Klein’s 1996 Primary Colors which attracted “a lot of readers” (reminder: it was a major bestseller) because they “thought they were getting a roman à clef about Bill and Hillary Clinton.” Kakutani rarely speculates on a book’s potential popularity, but she predicts American Wife will have an appeal similar to Primary Colors, also attracting “a lot of readers.”

So far, library reserve patterns don’t reflect that. Since I checked yesterday, reserves have ticked up only slightly at four large library systems. There are now a total of 423 reserves on 166 copies (in both audio and print), which is slightly more than 2.5 per copy. 

American Wife

Curtis Sittenfeld

• Hardcover: $26.00
• Publisher: Random House (September 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1400064759
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064755

We suggested earlier that The Good Thief, which is on order in small quantities in most libraries, is a title to watch.

Today’s New York Times seems to bear that out. Janet Maslin gives it a very strong review, calling it “darkly transporting.” She relates it to The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, saying that in both books “the reader can find plain-spoken fiction full of traditional virtues: strong plotting, pure lucidity, visceral momentum and a total absence of writerly mannerisms.”

Good Thief 

Hannah Tinti

• Hardcover: $26; 336 pages
• Publisher: The Dial Press (August 26, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0385337450
• ISBN-13: 978-0385337458

When excerpts of the novel, American Wife were posted in early July, the obvious references to the life of the current first lady (and the fact that the excerpts were “steamy”) brought some strident protests. Maureen Dowd, who clearly read more than just the excerpts, jumped into the fray and defended the book, saying the portraits of the First Couple “are trenchant and make you like them more.”

The book will be released on Tuesday; USA Today features a review today. Noting that the book’s release date coincides with the Republican National Convention, the review says author Curtis Sittenfeld (who, in case you are wondering, is a woman), “creatively fills in the blanks” of the Laura Bush story (actually, the Alice Blackwell story, as the main character is named).

Reading the book could bring on a curious feeling, which USA Today describes,

It may be impossible for readers not to picture President and Mrs. Bush while reading about Alice and Charlie. This gives the novel cinematic qualities that enhance the experience. But explicit sex scenes will make you feel like a voyeur.

In a sidebar, USA Today tries to discover if the First Lady will be indulging in that voyeurism (talk about a multi-layered experience). A spokesperson says she “has no plans to read [it].”

So far, reserves are not heavy at the four large library systems I checked. They show a total of 166 copies on order in both print and audio, with 410 reserves, which is about 2.5 per copy.

American Wife

Curtis Sittenfeld

• Hardcover: $26.00
• Publisher: Random House (September 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1400064759
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064755

In NPR’s regular feature, “Books We Like,” Barrie Hardymon praises both of Tana French’s psychological thrillers; In the Woods (2007, which won the Edgar for best first novel; it has been on the NYT Paperback Fiction bestseller list since its release in that format) and The Likeness (July).

Reviewers have trouble figuring out how to describe the appeal of French’s books. Hardymon says that, in Into the Woods, French,

…audaciously denied the closure that mystery fans crave; one of the crimes remained unsolved. Readers hoping that this follow-up novel would deliver that resolution should be disappointed for about a minute and a half — the time it takes for the new story to grip.

In The Likeness, the main character takes on the identity of a murder victim,

…inheriting an intense and exclusive group of friends…[this] cagily charismatic group drinks, banters, screws and harbors its intimacies as seductively as the oddballs in Donna Tartt’s classic The Secret History. As in that novel, the thrill comes in exploring the peculiar, collective psychology of the clique — the members of which keep secrets about Lexie’s murder from outsiders and each other.

Reserves are running five to one in some areas on The Likeness, six weeks after publication. The book will also be coming out in large type in October.

• Hardcover: $25.95
• Publisher: Viking, (July 17, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0670018864
• ISBN-13: 978-0670018864

Book videos rarely rise to the level of movie trailers (the production values of Dark Knight require a lot of cash), but a few have managed to pull off pretty effective videos precisely by not going Hollywood (the one for Yiddish with George and Laura still makes me laugh).

And, then, there are videos with great production values, that make you wonder what they actually do for the book (case in point; Celubatantes).

Brad Meltzer believes the medium can work, so he created a “trailer” for Book of Lies, coming out next week. As he told Entertainment Weekly’s “PopWatch” blog last week,

I had seen so many book trailers which were exactly like every other book commercial you see: scary-voice-guy tells you what it says on the back of the book jacket. But none of those trailers ever invested you in the story. Or the characters. And that’s what the best movie trailers do. So I wrote what you see. Brandon Graham and Expanded Books did the filming and production. I treated it like my own personal independent film. The goal was to create the trailer for the greatest movie that didn’t exist. And then, like any independent film, I called in some friends. The goal was simple: we wanted to change how books are sold (how’s that for presumptuous?)

I’m convinced, but don’t just take my word for it; after, all it did manage to get “PopWatch” to turn its attention from movies & tv for a second, and mention a book.

Judge for yourself:

• Hardcover: $25.99; 352 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (September 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 044657788X
• ISBN-13: 978-0446577885

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will be pubbed in the US in a few weeks, on the heels of great success in Europe. The Times of London explores that success in a weekend feature.  

In the author’s native Sweden, the book sold over one million copies before being published in England, where it’s sold a more modest, but still very strong 52,000. The publisher is about to release it in paperback, with a 200,000 copy printing.

The book is the first in Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy, which is so popular that in Stockholm, fans walk in the steps of the fictional characters.

The Times describes Girl with the Dragon Tattoo this way,

The protagonists of Dragon Tattoo are a remarkably well-drawn duo; disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist and youthful computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. Salander, in particular, is something completely new in crime fiction; she has an alienating appearance (facial jewellery, ill-matched clothes and the dragon tattoo of the title). But despite her forbidding appearance, she is immensely vulnerable, struggling with personal demons. As she and her journalist colleague investigate the disappearance of the niece of an ailing tycoon, readers realised that Salander was an irresistible new character in the genre.

The second title in the trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire, landed at #10 in France and the third, Castles in the Sky, is now #1 in Sweden.

Unfortunately, Larsson only lived long enough to see his first book become a success in Sweden. He died at the age of 50 in 2004 from an apparent heart attack (there are some who suspect foul play; he was a journalist who had made some scary enemies).

LJ’s Willy Williams gave it a strong review (LJ review, 8/15) and blogged about it shortly after BEA (we also hear it’s the book she told her boss she had to take with her on vacation).

The originally annouced 100,000 first printing is now up to 150,000, indicating that accounts responded well to it.  A bookseller for BookPeople in Austin, TX makes it a  “Top Shelf Pick” on the indie’s weg site and discovered that fellow booksellers in the midwest can’t stop raving about it.

European hits often don’t translate to the US and there are elements in the book that may not appeal to Americans (the novel, titled “Men Who Hate Women” in Sweden, focuses on the serial abuse of women). A reviewer in the Charleston City Paper (the only American newspaper review to date) is so put off by the book, that she suggests Larsson himself was a man who hated women.

Several of the libraries I’ve checked have not ordered it; the rest have ordered it in modest quantities, with some holds.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson and Reg Keeland

• Hardcover: $24.95; 480 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (September 16, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0307269752
• ISBN-13: 978-0307269751

• Audio CD: Abridged edition, $29.95
• Publisher: Random House Audio;  (September 16, 2008)
• Reader: Martin Wenner
• ISBN-10: 0739370642
• ISBN-13: 978-0739370643

It’s no wonder the review of The Grift by Debra Ginsberg is the most emailed of the stories in the NYT Book section today; it makes you want to tell people about it (amazing how rare that is).

One of the goals of EarlyWord is to find consumer reviews that have quotable lines for RA. This one has it;

For anyone who seeks an escape between two covers in these last few weeks of summer…The Grift is a gift with no strings attached… a satisfyingly voyeuristic vision of a mysterious stranger’s supernaturally charged fortunes.

The prepub reviews were decent, but not nearly as enthusiastic. Some libraries I checked don’t have it on order; those that do have holds.

Attention Southern California libraries; the review praises the depiction of San Diego (”a lifelike, multishaded rendering of San Diego’s blend of cultures, classes, ancestries and motivations”), the author’s home town.

The Grift

Debra Ginsberg

• Hardcover: $23.95
• Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books (August 12, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0307382729
• ISBN-13: 978-0307382726