[2012] What are you reading?

A friend scored tickets to a small dinner party last night with Garth Stein. It was really freaking cool. Garth is a pretty amiable, laid back guy, and it was awesome getting to have casual conversation about The Art of Racing in the Rain.

It was inspired by the poem The Revenant by Billy Collins:

Spoiler

I am the dog you put to sleep,
as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
come back to tell you this simple thing:
I never liked you--not one bit.

When I licked your face,
I thought of biting off your nose.
When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.

I resented the way you moved,
your lack of animal grace,
the way you would sit in a chair to eat,
a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.

I would have run away,
but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
while I was learning to sit and heel,
and--greatest of insults--shake hands without a hand.

I admit the sight of the leash
would excite me
but only because it meant I was about
to smell things you had never touched.

You do not want to believe this,
but I have no reason to lie.
I hated the car, the rubber toys,
disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.

The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
You always scratched me in the wrong place.
All I ever wanted from you
was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.

While you slept, I watched you breathe
as the moon rose in the sky.
It took all of my strength
not to raise my head and howl.

Now I am free of the collar,
the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,
the absurdity of your lawn,
and that is all you need to know about this place

except what you already supposed
and are glad it did not happen sooner--

that everyone here can read and write,
the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose.

He spun a long tale to the whole group about his publishing hell to see The Art of Racing in the Rain into print. He was pretty happy with the book and sent it to his agent a few weeks before Thanksgiving. About to walk into a Whole Foods to buy a turkey on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, his agent called and said "It's a story narrated by a dog."

Garth told him "I know. I wrote it."

The agent proceded to go into a lengthy reason why the book would never see the light of day. No agent would accept the book, no publisher would publish the book, no book store would sell the book, no PR firm would market the book, and readers wouldn't pick up a book told from the POV of a dog. Garth listened patiently and fired the guy when he was through. Luckily, he had a serendipitous meeting with another author, whose agent had just sold his novel which was told through the POV of a crow. Over a hundred weeks on the best seller lists show what a lot of dumb asses there are in the publishing world.

We have a pretty phenomenal library system in Seattle, and it was interesting hearing Garth and a few librarians discuss eBooks, DRM (Stein is in favor of DRM-Free ebooks), Amazon, and the state of the publishing industry. Some of that is more relevant to me as an author who is hoping to have his second book done this year.

Enzo was a direct reflection of Denny, and Denny is a pretty direct reflection of Garth Stein. He used to race cars, and he spoke about how it definitely influenced his philosophy on life. As a racer, you have to forget what just happened and always focus on what's ahead. The quote "The car goes where the eyes go" was used quite often in the novel, and it seems to be the way Stein has tried to raise his kids and live his life. Accepting personal responsibility was another theme he talked about.

I've met a few other favorite authors over the years (Nick Hornby and a very cool meeting with Bruce Campbell), but this was by far the most intimate.

And if you haven't read The Art of Racing in the Rain, please do yourself a favor and go check it out. Enzo is the best dog in literature (sorry Einstein), and I would go even further to put him the upper echelon of best characters ever created across all species.

 

I did finish it and talked about it here. It's a long and slow moving novel, but I liked it quite a bit. The last bit got a bit weird in a Stephen King kind of way, but I liked the way the book ended. I'm not in a huge rush to go out and read more King though. I think there's a reason I went 18 years without reading one of his novels.

Just know that the book doesn't really pick up until quite late. King likes letting his plots simmer at a slow pace.

 

It's set up as a four book series. The second book, The Angel's Game is a prequel set in the 1920's and 1930's as opposed to The Shadow of the Wind which was set in the mid 1950's.

From the jacket cover:
In this powerful, labyrinthian thriller, David Martín is a pulp fiction writer struggling to stay afloat. Holed up in a haunting abandoned mansion in the heart of Barcelona, he furiously taps out story after story, becoming increasingly desperate and frustrated. Thus, when he is approached by a mysterious publisher offering a book deal that seems almost too good to be real, David leaps at the chance. But as he begins the work, and after a visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, he realizes that there is a connection between his book and the shadows that surround his dilapidated home and that the publisher may be hiding a few troubling secrets of his own. Once again, Ruiz Zafón takes us into a dark, gothic Barcelona and creates a breathtaking tale of intrigue, romance, and tragedy

The writing on the book was haunting and beautiful, and parts of the story were lushly and evocatively described in Zafon's amazing prose. But the ending was a muddled mess.

So now, we have book 3, The Prisoner of Heaven, which is set directly after The Shadow of the Wind.

Its jacket cover:
Barcelona, 1957. It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife, Bea, have much to celebrate. They have a beautiful new baby son named Julian, and their close friend Fermin Romero de Torres is about to be wed. But their joy is eclipsed when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city’s dark past. His appearance plunges Fermin and Daniel into a dangerous adventure that will take them back to the 1940s and the early days of Franco's dictatorship. The terrifying events of that time launch them on a search for the truth that will put into peril everything they love and ultimately transform their lives.

So this book has been out for nearly a year in Spanish and is finally being released in July, translated once again by Lucia Graves. I'd really love to know how instrumental she is in Zafon's incredible prose. I've read one review, which stayed spoiler free. I do know that the mysterious stranger listed above is looking for a special copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, and that having knowledge of that story will provide a number of easter eggs, but you don't have to know that novel to enjoy The Prisoner of Heaven. But this is why I read the unabridged version of Monte Cristo a couple of months ago.

I've also heard that this third book helps clarify some of the weird ending of The Angel's Game, and that it will lead directly into the fourth and final novel.

Zafon also has some young adult novels he wrote before The Shadow of the Wind, but they're pretty thin young adult books. He clearly honed his writing chops before making the leap to adult fiction.

The Shadow of the Wind is my favorite novel of all time. I picked it up serendipitously at an airport bookstore for a 4 hour flight to Houston. I wound up with insomnia and stayed up all night and read it straight through. I was crap for work the next day, but I was blown away. I so highly recommend this book for people who haven't read it yet.

I'm excited. I get to read The Art of Racing in the Rain next for a book club after meeting the author and talking about it, and then I get to move on to re-reads of The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game followed by the release of The Prisoner of Heaven. I've got some really nice reading lined up over the next month, and I cannot wait to read about more adventures of Daniel Sempere and Fermin Romero de Torres.