Thank you, Lauren Marino and Susan Barnes of Gotham for seeing this book through.
4 Comments on Handling the Truth: the first-pass pages arrive, last added: 10/26/2012
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 10/16/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: memoir writing, Lauren Marino, Handling the Truth, Susan Barnes, Add a tag
And soon I will sit and read again and hope that all I meant to say, all I need to say, is here, and here clearly.
Thank you, Lauren Marino and Susan Barnes of Gotham for seeing this book through.
By: Beth Kephart ,
on 9/18/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Gotham, TeenReads, FLOW: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, Ed Goldberg, Small Damages, Lauren Marino, Susan Barnes, Love is Not a Triangle, Add a tag
My cup is overflowing.
On this rainy afternoon, I would like to thank the one and only Ed Goldberg for reading Flow, my Philadelphia river book, and having so much good to say on his spectacular, shared blog, 2Together. Ed, you are so integral to my writing life. I am blessed by your kindness in so many ways.
Through Twitter, a tool I have yet to master, but a tool through which I have made new friends, I learned of two spectacular new reviews of Small Damages. One, by the bloggess, Love Is Not a Triangle, made me smile in so many ways, and had me sharing, with the bloggess, my thoughts about the Small Damages sequel I hope to someday write. The whole is here.
The second is by the good people of teenreads—or, I should say, by the super duper Terry Miller Shannon of teenreads—who wrote, among other things, "Characters are so fully realized, they could walk off the page.... Small Damages is on the short side but is nothing short of a glorious triumph for Kephart." Those words will put sun into anybody's rainy day.
Finally, today, I want to thank Susan Barnes, Lauren Marino, and a certain publicist named Beth—all on the Gotham team. I had called Susan with a concern not at all of Gotham's making. She listened and took action at once. With tremendous compassion and care, the team relieved me of a percolating anxiety. They didn't have to do this. Some publishing teams might not have. But Gotham did, and I will always be grateful.
By: Beth Kephart ,
on 7/26/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Gotham, Jessica Shoffel, The Betty and Boo Chronicles, Melissa Firman, Small Damages review, Lauren Marino, George William Shaw, Philomel, Handling the Truth, Add a tag
I began a blogging conversation with Melissa Firman of The Betty and Boo Chronicles so long ago that I can't remember the first prompt, the earliest words. Melissa and I share many things—proximity (at least until a transfer took her west), friends, a love for our children, a love for books—and the first time I actually met Melissa was on a bitter cold night, when she came to a talk I was giving about the impact of place on my work. She came bearing books, my own. She has built, over time, an embarrassingly generous Beth Kephart library. Even as she does so many things, for so many others, and even as she keeps her Facebook friends abreast of the special people in her life.
And so Melissa's words today, about Small Damages, are the words of one who has read an oeuvre with great care. They are the words of someone who has carefully, patiently watched my work evolve over time. Reading Melissa's blog post was, to me, akin to reading a scholarly piece. I learned so much and became so absorbed in Melissa's thinking that it wasn't until the end that I remembered that she was writing about me. This post was so exceptional that my publicist, Jessica Shoffel, sent an email earlier: Making sure you saw this one.
I share Melissa's words at the end of a day of many emotions. We honored our George Shaw this morning at a beautiful service in which grandchildren read, a son eloquently remembered, and family and friends and neighbors knit tight. How proud George is, looking down, on his gigantic community. His son referred to George as an extraordinary ordinary man. My own son, sitting near me in the pews, said later that that is the best kind of man.
After the service and lunch I came home to read Handling the Truth one last time, for it is bound for copyediting soon. I'll never quite forget the note Lauren Marino, my Gotham editor, wrote last night to tell me that we are entering the book's next phase. Having just sat here today and read all 61,000 words through again, I hope it is all right to say here that I am so at peace with Truth.
By: Beth Kephart ,
on 6/25/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Gotham, Philomel, Tamra Tuller, Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent, Lauren Marino, Handling the Truth, Add a tag
Yesterday I sent dear Tamra Tuller of Philomel the revised Berlin novel. A few days before, HANDLING THE TRUTH went off to Lauren Marino at Gotham, and the week prior to that DR. RADWAY'S SARSAPARILLA RESOLVENT was emailed to its publisher, a package made complete by my husband's eleven illustrations.
It has been, in other words, a heady time—my thoughts, in overlapping intervals, inside a certain German city, circa 1983, inside a century's worth of 100 memoirs, and inside 1871 Philadelphia and the cacophony of Baldwin Locomotive Works.
But it was my office that was really showing the heat.
That space is so much neater now. It's dusted and Windexed and vacuumed, too. It's a place for starting over in, and that is what I'll be doing over the next many weeks. I'll be back at work on corporate projects. I'll be doing some teaching, some reviewing, some author interviewing, some essay writing. I'll be reading some 20 new books and celebrating them here, on my blog, with the world.
And I'll be launching SMALL DAMAGES.
It will be an untangling time. It will be awhile, I suspect, before I begin to dream about any new books.
By: Beth Kephart ,
on 6/18/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Gotham, Penguin, Lauren Marino, Handling the Truth, The Rules of the Tunnel, Ned Zeman, Add a tag
I have, as many of you know, been on a hunt for extraordinary memoirs. The equally inventive and true kind of memoir. The it's-not-really-just-all-about-me. This weekend alone I went through several would-be memoir contestants. I emerged holding just one high above my head.
(Victory.)
It's called The Rules of the Tunnel: My Brief Period of Madness. It's by Ned Zeman, whose work you might have seen in Vanity Fair or GQ or Outside. He's a reporter—witty and smart—but he's also dogged by the demons of depression. Anxiety gnarls at him, too, worries that escalate over time. And as therapy of the medicinal as well as the talking kind fail to relieve him of a paralyzingly dark stupor, Zeman turns, with hope, to electroconvulsive therapy.
The madness doesn't quell; it escalates. Mania ensues. Zeman will barely remember a bit of it, for amnesia has swept in, too.
Told in a fantastic, sometimes bawdy, reliably funny (yes, funny), deeply intelligent second person, The Rules of the Tunnel is not just a reconstructed life. It's a book that looks out for others along the way—defining, cautioning, placating—all while offering a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the doings of Vanity Fair, the collective care of friends, and the investigative tools that must be brought to bear on the telling of a life that is not, in large swaths, remembered. I am head-over-heels for the final lines in this book, but it wouldn't be fair to quote them. So I will give you the equally fantastic first bit of a book that is just this good in its entirety:
The Rules of the Tunnel is, I will add here, a Gotham publication, acquired by Lauren Marino. I always sensed that I, with Handling the Truth, was in good hands. Now I know for sure.
By: Beth Kephart ,
on 5/31/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Ed Nawotka, Lauren Marino, Dennis Abrams, Gotham, Jill Santopolo, Philomel, Jessica Shoffel, Publishing Perspectives, Tamra Tuller, Michael Green, Add a tag
If I am too exhausted to state with any inch of eloquence how grateful I am for today—for being included in a well-run, truly substantive, inviting conference, for sitting on a panel among greats, for meeting, at long last, the delightful Jenny Brown, for spying on Roger Sutton's socks, for a chance to hurry through a loved city's streets, for an excuse to visit the extraordinarily wonderful Tamra Tuller, Michael Green, Jessica Shoffel, and Jill Santopolo, for the opportunity to meet the funny and fun and winning Lauren Marino—if I am too exhausted, might I at least share these two images of a conference I won't forget?
Thank you, Ed Nawotka and Dennis Abrams of Publishing Perspectives for making this day what it was. For making me a part of it.
By: Beth Kephart ,
on 5/1/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Gotham, Lauren Marino, Handling the Truth, Add a tag
And so, having cleared my mind with three days of reading, with long walks, with dance, I turn to writing HANDLING THE TRUTH for Lauren Marino at Gotham. Every pink and yellow square flags a chapter that waits (and wants).
I imagine myself just slightly underground, inside a grotto of time.
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 10/16/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: memoir writing, Lauren Marino, Handling the Truth, Susan Barnes, Add a tag
Thank you, Lauren Marino and Susan Barnes of Gotham for seeing this book through.
By: Beth Kephart ,
on 9/18/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Gotham, TeenReads, FLOW: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, Ed Goldberg, Small Damages, Lauren Marino, Susan Barnes, Love is Not a Triangle, Add a tag
On this rainy afternoon, I would like to thank the one and only Ed Goldberg for reading Flow, my Philadelphia river book, and having so much good to say on his spectacular, shared blog, 2Together. Ed, you are so integral to my writing life. I am blessed by your kindness in so many ways.
Through Twitter, a tool I have yet to master, but a tool through which I have made new friends, I learned of two spectacular new reviews of Small Damages. One, by the bloggess, Love Is Not a Triangle, made me smile in so many ways, and had me sharing, with the bloggess, my thoughts about the Small Damages sequel I hope to someday write. The whole is here.
The second is by the good people of teenreads—or, I should say, by the super duper Terry Miller Shannon of teenreads—who wrote, among other things, "Characters are so fully realized, they could walk off the page.... Small Damages is on the short side but is nothing short of a glorious triumph for Kephart." Those words will put sun into anybody's rainy day.
Finally, today, I want to thank Susan Barnes, Lauren Marino, and a certain publicist named Beth—all on the Gotham team. I had called Susan with a concern not at all of Gotham's making. She listened and took action at once. With tremendous compassion and care, the team relieved me of a percolating anxiety. They didn't have to do this. Some publishing teams might not have. But Gotham did, and I will always be grateful.
2 Comments on my cup overflows—reviews of Flow and Small Damages; kindness from Gotham, last added: 9/19/2012
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 7/26/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Gotham, Jessica Shoffel, The Betty and Boo Chronicles, Melissa Firman, Small Damages review, Lauren Marino, George William Shaw, Philomel, Handling the Truth, Add a tag
And so Melissa's words today, about Small Damages, are the words of one who has read an oeuvre with great care. They are the words of someone who has carefully, patiently watched my work evolve over time. Reading Melissa's blog post was, to me, akin to reading a scholarly piece. I learned so much and became so absorbed in Melissa's thinking that it wasn't until the end that I remembered that she was writing about me. This post was so exceptional that my publicist, Jessica Shoffel, sent an email earlier: Making sure you saw this one.
I share Melissa's words at the end of a day of many emotions. We honored our George Shaw this morning at a beautiful service in which grandchildren read, a son eloquently remembered, and family and friends and neighbors knit tight. How proud George is, looking down, on his gigantic community. His son referred to George as an extraordinary ordinary man. My own son, sitting near me in the pews, said later that that is the best kind of man.
After the service and lunch I came home to read Handling the Truth one last time, for it is bound for copyediting soon. I'll never quite forget the note Lauren Marino, my Gotham editor, wrote last night to tell me that we are entering the book's next phase. Having just sat here today and read all 61,000 words through again, I hope it is all right to say here that I am so at peace with Truth.
4 Comments on the day that was: Melissa Firman, George Shaw, Small Damages, Truth, last added: 7/27/2012
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 6/25/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Gotham, Philomel, Tamra Tuller, Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent, Lauren Marino, Handling the Truth, Add a tag
It has been, in other words, a heady time—my thoughts, in overlapping intervals, inside a certain German city, circa 1983, inside a century's worth of 100 memoirs, and inside 1871 Philadelphia and the cacophony of Baldwin Locomotive Works.
But it was my office that was really showing the heat.
That space is so much neater now. It's dusted and Windexed and vacuumed, too. It's a place for starting over in, and that is what I'll be doing over the next many weeks. I'll be back at work on corporate projects. I'll be doing some teaching, some reviewing, some author interviewing, some essay writing. I'll be reading some 20 new books and celebrating them here, on my blog, with the world.
And I'll be launching SMALL DAMAGES.
It will be an untangling time. It will be awhile, I suspect, before I begin to dream about any new books.
9 Comments on in the aftermath of three made books., last added: 6/25/2012
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 6/18/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Gotham, Penguin, Lauren Marino, Handling the Truth, The Rules of the Tunnel, Ned Zeman, Add a tag
(Victory.)
It's called The Rules of the Tunnel: My Brief Period of Madness. It's by Ned Zeman, whose work you might have seen in Vanity Fair or GQ or Outside. He's a reporter—witty and smart—but he's also dogged by the demons of depression. Anxiety gnarls at him, too, worries that escalate over time. And as therapy of the medicinal as well as the talking kind fail to relieve him of a paralyzingly dark stupor, Zeman turns, with hope, to electroconvulsive therapy.
The madness doesn't quell; it escalates. Mania ensues. Zeman will barely remember a bit of it, for amnesia has swept in, too.
Told in a fantastic, sometimes bawdy, reliably funny (yes, funny), deeply intelligent second person, The Rules of the Tunnel is not just a reconstructed life. It's a book that looks out for others along the way—defining, cautioning, placating—all while offering a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the doings of Vanity Fair, the collective care of friends, and the investigative tools that must be brought to bear on the telling of a life that is not, in large swaths, remembered. I am head-over-heels for the final lines in this book, but it wouldn't be fair to quote them. So I will give you the equally fantastic first bit of a book that is just this good in its entirety:
Not so long ago, in the heyday of your idiocy, you made yourself a promise. That you can no longer remember making the promise, nor anything about it—aside from a yellow sticky-note reading "Remember Promise!"�fills you with the warm glow of achievement. You lived, if only briefly, among The Great Amnesiacs. And you did live well. Reportedly.
The Rules of the Tunnel is, I will add here, a Gotham publication, acquired by Lauren Marino. I always sensed that I, with Handling the Truth, was in good hands. Now I know for sure.
2 Comments on The Rules of the Tunnel/Ned Zeman: Reflections, last added: 6/18/2012
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 5/31/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Ed Nawotka, Lauren Marino, Dennis Abrams, Gotham, Jill Santopolo, Philomel, Jessica Shoffel, Publishing Perspectives, Tamra Tuller, Michael Green, Add a tag
Thank you, Ed Nawotka and Dennis Abrams of Publishing Perspectives for making this day what it was. For making me a part of it.
3 Comments on Publishing Perspectives Conference: the day that was, last added: 6/2/2012
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 5/1/2012
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Gotham, Lauren Marino, Handling the Truth, Add a tag
I imagine myself just slightly underground, inside a grotto of time.
4 Comments on HANDLING THE TRUTH: writing the next two-thirds, last added: 5/2/2012
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Oh, my goodness. . . to have it in my hands! I'm working in the dark here Beth!
Soon, Missy! I promise.
May you find that all you meant to say and all you need to say is there. Hoping. Hoping so.
Really looking forward to this.
Lisa