“Inside Madeleine” and “Mr. Loverman”

This Sunday in the New York Times Book Review, our clients, Akashic Books and Soho Press, have the marginalized covered as two of their newest books that deal with some of the more underrepresented demographics are reviewed.

Soho Press’ Inside Madeleine by Paula Bomer reflects on the female psyche, specifically focusing on the characters’ sexual and bodily identities. According to Dayna Tortorici,

“bodily control [is] a desperate expression of free will: Bomer’s characters starve themselves, stuff themselves, walk until their feet bleed, and smoke up until they cannot move. At every turn they struggle to square their strong personalities with the ritual and class-coded humiliations of being young and female.”

While Bomer’s 229 page novel may lead to grim endings and futile efforts, Bomer seems to be commenting on the societal structures that bind young women.

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Akashic Books’ Mr. Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo chronicles the life of Barrington Jedidiah Walker, a West Indian man living in Britain. Barrington is a closeted gay man, and at 70-something years old, he’s been hiding his secret for a long time. Barrington is married to a faithful Pentecostal woman, Carmel, but is truly in love with Morris de la Roux.

Mr. Loverman, set in 2010, is replete with flashbacks of Barrington’s life. Furthermore Evaristo deepens her novel as she also incorporates flashbacks of Morris’ life. According to Ellery Washington, seamlessly

“intertwines historical and contemporary issues of race, immigration, generational divides, neighborhood gentrification, sibling rivalries, social progress, social disillusionment and, most directly, African-Caribbean sexuality. 

This is rich territory — dense — and Evaristo clearly knows her subjects. So much is said, so much ground covered so quickly, that one might easily get lost in the interwoven threads if not for Evaristo’s confident control of the language, her vibrant use of humor, rhythm and poetry, and the realistic mix of Caribbean patois with both street and the Queen’s English helping to fix characters in the reader’s mind.”

Both novels, how different they are in style and content, deal with marginalized themes. It is refreshing to see these topics handled in a personalized, but unromanticized manner.

Inside Madeleine
229 pages, $16.
Soho Press
Purchase

Mr. Loverman
284 pages, $11.96
Akashic Books
Purchase

Benay Clients, Akashic Books & Overlook Press Have Books Reviewed in the NYTimes Book Review

This past Sunday’s New York Times Book Review was a big one for two of Benay’s clients. Drawing Autism from Akashic Books received a shout-out, and Wonderkid from Overlook Press received a lengthy review.

Akashic Books

Drawing Autism is a compilation edited by Jill Mullin, a clinical therapist. Much of the artwork is from Glen Russ, “who at an early age developed a passion for music and art.” Mullin was fascinated and decided to explore the relationship between art and people with autism. “Russ’s pictures are primitive but not naïve, while other works in the book are more advanced.”

You can purchase Drawing Autism from Akashic’s site. If you order through Akashic, all copies of Drawing Autism are SIGNED by editor Jill Mullin, while supplies last!

Overlook Press

Wonderkid by Wesley Stace is the story of Blake, a rock ‘n’ roll obsessive, whose band, Wunderkinds, gets rebranded as “Wonderkids, a brightly costumed rock ‘n’ roll act for toddlers.” After Wonderkids’ first tour is scheduled and Blake is on the bus to leave town, the novel curiously adds a first-person narrator.

Lucinda Rosenfeld describes Wonderkid as “winningly dry, occasionally hilarious and enervatingly long-winded.”

You can purchase Wonderkid from Overlook Press’ site.

Benay wants to wish these two publishers, the best of luck and continued success as they continue wowing the literary world.

Akashic Books and Tin House Make Flavorwire's "25 Independent Presses That Prove This Is the Golden Age of Indie Publishing"

We just wanted to give a big congratulations to Benay clients, Akashic Books and Tin House for their feature in Flavorwire’s 25 Independent Presses That Prove This Is the Golden Age of Indie Publishing. With all of the publishing doomsayers, it’s nice to see the little engines-that-could pulling strong.

Independent publishing — that is, publishing whatever an individual or small group think is worthy of dumping their time and money into — is nothing new. From Virginia and Leonard Woolf starting up Hogarth Press to the early days of Farrar, Straus and Giroux championing now-iconic authors that other publishers wouldn’t touch, DIY publishing has long been responsible for some of our best literature.

 Here’s what Jason Diamond from Flavorwire had to say about Akashic:

Literature lovers smiled when Adam Mansbach’s Go the Fuck to Sleep became a massive bestseller — not just because of the clever title, but because it was awesome to see this fearless publisher get the mainstream recognition it deserves. And with a mission statement that emphasizes its intention of forever remaining a “independent company dedicated to publishing urban literary fiction and political nonfiction by authors who are either ignored by the mainstream, or who have no interest in working within the ever-consolidating ranks of the major corporate publishers,” Akashic is pretty much the ultimate indie. From its acclaimed Noir series to books on punk-rock history to publishing Melvin Van Peebles, Akashic is doing it on its own terms.

And here’s what he had to say about Tin House:

Going strong as a literary magazine since 1999, this operation based in both Portland, Oregon and Brooklyn has seen its book-publishing wing getting bigger and better with every new book, including titles by Christopher Beha, Lucy Corin, and Matthew Specktor, as well as Zak Smith’s We Did Porn. 

Congratulations to them both! We love to see our clients get the recognition we know they deserve. Here’s to many more years of continued success!

Infamous Books Now an Imprint of Akashic Books

Benay client, Akashic Books, is taking it to the street with their new imprint, Infamous Books. Akashic has paired with Infamous Records to release a line of urban fiction novellas. The first book, H.N.I.C., by rapper Prodigy (who also owns Infamous Records) and Steven Savile will be released on July 16^th. Prodigy (Albert Johnson) is a member of the rap duo, Mobb Deep and the H.N.I.C. release will coincide with Mobb Deep’s international tour.

H.N.I.C., a novella by Albert Johnson with Steven Savile will be released on July 16th.

According to Publisher’s Weekly, Akashic Books will work as the distributor and “co-handle the editorial and marketing duties with Infamous.” Marvis Johnson, Prodigy’s talent manager, “will oversee the daily operations of the imprint.” Johnson plans to use innovative marketing strategies to reach audiences wider than just the African American demographic. “’The statistics are that 90% of urban music is not purchased by African Americans. But urban books, when they are released, are only promoted to African Americans,’” he said.

This will be Prodigy’s second book. His memoir, My Infamous Life (Touchstone), was published in 2011. Interestingly enough, H.N.I.C. began as a film script in 1999. “’After My Infamous Life came out, I decided to take the H.N.I.C. script and [work with] somebody who was a book writer,’” said Prodigy. He chose to work with Steven Savile who is an award-winning British novelist and has published works in the fantasy, horror, and thriller genres.

Albert Johnson is better known as Prodigy, a member of the rap duo, Mobb Deep.

“’Steve brings the European style and mixes it with mine,’ Prodigy says. ‘I love street slang, and I listen to the street slang of other countries. So Steve added twists and turns and changed the language.’ Savile added, ‘each of us basically added our own unique skill set to the book. It's certainly a book neither of us could have written alone.’”

The books will be in novella form (80-100 pages) with a small trim size of 5” by 7”. They will be published in all formats simultaneously (hardcover, paperback, audio, and e-books). As Akashic Books publisher, Johnny Temple says, “’We’ve had a lot of success with small trim sizes …With the Hip Hop street esthetic, there’s something about being able to slip it in your back pocket.”

Infamous Books will release an average of four novellas a year and will include novellas from other urban fiction authors such as K’wan (Hood Rat, Welfare Wifeys), JaQuavis Coleman (co-author of The Cartel, Murderville), and Miasha (Secret Society, Diary of a Mistress).

Prodigy is not the first rapper to enter the publishing world. 50 Cent, T.I., Jay-Z , and Eminem have all written books. According to the New  York Times, there is a stark distinction between urban fiction and street-lit, which many of these rappers’ books fall into. The street-lit genre features stories that are more violent and devious. Urban fiction tends to focus more on morality and issues of loyalty.

Akashic Books has previously published urban fiction but tends to stick with literary fiction and political non-fiction. “’It’s a perfect imprint for the way the book industry is suffering,’ Temple said recently. ‘It will bring in new audiences. I see this as crime fiction, and there are not many black crime fiction writers beyond Walter Mosley and the late Chester Himes. Akashic is a literary publishing house, and we’re in a perfect position to crossover books like this and to say, ‘Don’t let the hip-hop aesthetics scare you off.’”

- Marcie Gainer