Paul Auster at Book Expo America

Paul Auster was at the book conference today, signing his newest novel, Sunset Park (which you should buy, and read). The line was surprisingly short -- I couldn't decide whether I was going to spend my entire 30-minute lunch break waiting to talk to him or just skip it and regret it for the rest of my life. Fortuitously, no choice needed to be made. He was perched on a high stool, looking particularly civil and caffeinated, in dark glasses, slicked-back hair, and every bit as rompy as one of his characters.

I asked if he was overloaded with books or if I could give him a copy of my book Candy in Action, which Soft Skull had just passed off to me. He said a pretty clear "overloaded," until his (handler? agent? mysterious female companion?) smiled graciously and said "I'll make sure he actually reads it" and slipped it from my hands. Then we talked about the comic he'd written that I'd read to my daughter the other day -- he cackled when he heard that. "She didn't get it at all, did she," he cackled. I said she understood it pretty well, but she was still checking for an invisible man behind her.

He said he didn't like the illustrations; I thought they were good, but strange, like smelling one thing and tasting another. Then he moved on. But it was pretty cool.

A minute later on the other side of the expo center, I ran into the Jewish Book Council crew. I was still bubbly about my new Auster book. Carolyn hooked into my arm: "Take us there," she commanded. I did. I stayed low because I'd had my moment and didn't want to spoil it, but I saw he still had my book sitting there. Naomi managed to snap a picture of Mr. Auster and my book, and there it sits above us in this post. If *ahem* when somebody makes it into a movie, I sincerely hope they cast Paul Auster as the shady character who gives Candy her missions. And that they pay him a million dollars to do it. I mean, it probably won't be as good as Smoke, but it will be a whole other kind of good. Unless they get Tom Waits to record the music too. Then it might be.

My new favorite photo ever from the Jewish Book Council blog, courtesy of Naomi and co. Thank you thank you.

Candy in Action: The Cover Story

Today on Melissa Walker's blog, she quizzes me about the cover of Candy in Action. Candy's publisher, Soft Skull Press, shared a bunch of the old cover versions and some of the original designs that inspired my editor Jody and I. If you've ever wanted a behind-the-scenes look at cover design, it doesn't get more behind-the-scenesy than this.

(And -- extra added bonus feature! -- here's the very first cover of Candy, which we talk about in the article, but which I stupidly couldn't convert into a normal file. But oh, do I have good powers of persuasion.)

"The moment that my publishers accepted the Candy in Action, I knew what the cover was going to look like. It wasn't even a matter of, what do I want it to look like. I just knew. It was going to be a sleek, glossy cover with black widescreen boxes at the top and bottom. Then the center was going to be a bright, vivid picture of the Los Angeles coast at night, taken from overhead--all neon lights and a million sparkling house parties--and then a black silhouette of a girl doing a kung-fu drop kick over it. That, uh, never happened.

"The publishers didn't ask for my input. I gave it to them anyway. My first book, Never Mind the Goldbergs, was with Scholastic. At most big publishing houses, if you're a first-time writer and you're really nice to them, you get to say 'no' once, and they might listen to you. I said no three times--I was a total diva. They were cool with it each time, though.

keep reading >

Richard Nash Leaves Soft Skull

OK, I'm as freaked out as you are -- here is the story, if you haven't heard. The halloween candy-size version: Richard Nash, who took over Soft Skull Press and polished it and shined it made it (even) great(er), is relinquishing command.

My guess is as good as yours, people. I thought that, if it ever happened, Richard would blast off straight into some new Web 4.0 idea of Twitter novels or Books That Read You or something even more revolutionary. Of course, what he says on his site makes just as much sense -- that he'll be consulting publishers and working to save our industry.

According to their press release, Soft Skull will keep going. Candy in Action will stay in print -- and have I mentioned it looks great in paperback? -- and I'm still friendly with them, as far as I know....and yes, if "Orthodox Girls" gets made into a movie and I sell a million copies of all my books, I still want to put out all my future books on a tiny indie press. There is no back catalogue I have a crush on more than Soft Skull's, from Daphne Gottlieb's manifestos to Mike Doughty's couplets. And, praise G-d, they're still going to be alive (well, except for Doughty, who went out of print a while ago....dammit). And Soft Skull's associate editor is sticking around, which gives me hope for the future, as much as it does for the present.

So there is no reason to be afraid. And every reason to think that Soft Skull will keep going, and that Richard will get under the skin of other publishers and implant little Soft Skull-like parasites there and create new little Soft Skull-inspired life forms crawling through Random House and Harper's and even (gasp) Scholastic...Hey, here's hoping.

Brave New Candy

I should not be getting this excited over a cover, but please believe me, it is hard to contain myself and restrain myself from writing more. Today at work I received a huge box of somethings, which is usually computer parts or promotional keychains or some bizarre food product.

But, today, it was Candy.

That's right: Candy is in paperback.

I am utterly fetishizing the cover, and I don't feel apologetic about it at all. Richard, my publisher, said that if I could get a new cover done, and it didn't cost them anything, they'd do it, and the comic artist Fred Chao pulled through amazingly. (His own Johnny Hiro: Half-Asian, All Hero is a remarkable book...and, as I keep pointing out, he tied with Joss Whedon for the most Eisner nominations this year, which in itself testifies to how much geek cred he should be going on right now.)

And, boom, we have this.

I love the split-screen cover. The quote from Melissa Walker on the front, if you can't read it, says "Part James Bond, part Bond girl, Candy is one unforgettable heroine!" And the rose bleeds across the spine and onto the back, which is great. The title font stretches off the cover, kind of that old-school Superman logo feeling, but in an understated way, like a natural evolution after the credits to "Smallville"...and just the sheer number of drawings that Fred uses (there's another one on the back of Candy looking badass with a hair dryer) is astounding. Especially in this world where most cover designers choose one picture from a clip-art file and paste it around the book a bunch of times....with the amount of Candys that Fred drew for the cover, he might as well have made a whole comic. Hey, there's still time.

The spine, though, is what really gives me shivers. The way that Candy in Action snakes down with little circles and blips is just crying out for another book to stand next to it. It's stirring up all these primal urges within me to write a sequel. And, dammit, I just might.

Subverting - and Loving - Islam

A few weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times did a story on Muslim punk-rock teenagers -- and we ran a critique of it -- and noted how the article was actually about one Muslim punk-rock teenager, and a bunch of other girls who talked about how weird it was.

Yesterday the New York Times profiled Michael Muhammad Knight, a Muslim and author of The Taqwacores, a novel about punk-rock Muslims. Both vehemently religious and sometimes vehemently opposed to the official Muslim platform on things -- or what's come to be accepted as the official Muslim platform on things -- Knight's characters are punk band members, co-ed prayer ritual leaders, and a "riot girl [sic] who plays guitar onstage wearing a burqa." The book started out life as a photocopied manuscript that was passed around between young outlier Muslims, but was soon picked up by Autonomedia and has just been rereleased in a sharp-looking printing by Soft Skull Press. But the Times profile gets both Knight's message and the author himself in a way that I think the L.A. Times just glossed over, which is to say, there's a stunning and humbling combination of chutzpah and devekut -- that is to say, in-your-face-ness and piety -- in Knight's work that connects with readers in a truly profound way.

The most awesome proof of this, I think, comes from the novel itself. When Knight wrote the book five years ago, he was writing a wish. Taqwacore was his made-up name; there weren't any Muslim bands playing revolutionary punk music. (And yes, I know I'm being incredibly gushy; my first book, Never Mind the Goldbergs, was about an Orthodox Jewish punk-rock scene that also didn't exist.) But in the short time since its publication, an entire Taqwacore scene has sprung up.

It seems kind of weird that I'm blogging about this on a Jewish site, I know. But so much of it resonates with my own Judaism -- and who among us doesn't recognize the impetus to both love our religion and despise parts of it? Knight, I think, says it best. It's easy to link Muhammad's actions (the prophet, not the author) to Abraham's riot-boy tantrum that first kicked off monotheism on Earth, but the sentiment of returning our religion to its roots, and separating true Torah from what everyone around you says it is, is a sentiment that we can all relate to:

[Knight] said he wrote “The Taqwacores” to mend the rift between his being an observant Muslim and an angry American youth. He found validation in the life of Muhammad, who instructed people to ignore their leaders, destroy their petty deities and follow only Allah.

oh, and....

coming this spring in paperback:

thank you, fred chao.