Nights and Grove
The service was, of course, beautiful. You merely had to think "I could go for another drink about now" and within moments something would materialize. From nowhere, servers were suddenly upon you with trays of things: an array of crackers smeared with mauve liver paste, quivering clumps of pink cat food, glistening mounds of choppy green stuff--each presented so encouragingly, but mostly to no avail. We in the local book world are simply used to eating solids. We in the local book world are not used to parties, nor even nice restaurants. This includes editors--mine, who overdressed, and a certain Seattle Times editor, who wore Birkenstocks.
The New York book world, of course, is something else entirely, though it's gotten it into its head that Seattle matters, which is why I and 40 others found ourselves crowded into Campagne last Tuesday for a four-course, four-star sales pitch thrown by Grove/Atlantic, Inc, an aggressive and illustrious publishing house whose backlist includes Samuel Beckett, and Jean Genet.
Here to promote their company's latest efforts were Judy Hottensen, the lusty and languid vice president of marketing; Eric Price, the tan chief of operations; Elisabeth T. Schmitz, the estimable young editor whose very first acquisition was Cold Mountain; and Morgan Entrekin, the spindly and gregarious chief editor, president, and publisher. (Also on hand were Sherman Alexie, Sheri Holman, and Frances Itani, all Grove/Atlantic authors with new books forthcoming.) Entrekin, a chain smoker with shoulder-length silver hair and an aura of fanatical brilliance, was holding court not five feet away when I pointed him out to a writer friend. "I'm so close and yet so far," said the writer friend.
The sun was setting and the room glowed, but that is a surface assessment. Not five minutes into the initial meet and greet, and already the seating placards were being shuffled around, not quite inconspicuously. Once the New Yorkers had met the new faces (these dinners occur annually) there was some rearranging to do. Whereupon a prominent figure in the book community leaned into me and whispered, "You have no idea the seething, roiling politics of booksellers in Seattle."
Maybe not, but I do have a sense of the seething, roiling politics of publicity--so much twisted, lurid glamour--and good God I love every minute of it. Last week I stumbled home loaded up on my two favorite things: expensive booze and brand-new books.
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News update: Eleanor Mason, the new executive director of Northwest Bookfest, has seen to it to pay all of 2002's as-yet-unpaid book artists. Bookfest's financially imperiled board has been putting this off since October [Nightstand, March 13, 2003]. Go Eleanor.
