Will "The Postmistress" be the next big hit with book clubs?

When Sarah Blake arrives at Park Road Books on Tuesday, it'll be her first stop on a national tour aimed at making her novel, "The Postmistress," the talk of book clubs all over the country.

The novel follows the lives of three American women in 1940-41, before America has entered World War II. Two -- a postmistress and a doctor's wife, live in a small town on Cape Cod. The third, Frankie Bard, is a CBS radio reporter stationed in London at the height of the Blitz.

"The Postmistress " spent four weeks on The New York Times bestseller list when it came out in hardback last year. The paperback edition ($15) is out Tuesday, and its publishers are hoping a robust marketing campaign will produce the kind of success -- sales of more than a million copies -- that Kate Jacobs' "Friday Night Knitting Club" enjoyed when it came out in paperback.

After finishing "The Postmistress" last night, I see why Blake's publishers are optimistic. It's a powerful, beautifully written story about how we deal with the news and what we do in response to it. It's about how Iris, the postmistress, and Frankie, the reporter, both betray their beliefs that the mail must be delivered and the news must be reported.

The book, Blake writes at the novel's end, is "about the lies we tell others to protect them, and about the lies we tell ourselves in order not to acknowledge what we can't bear: that we are alive, for instance, and eating lunch, while bombs are falling, and refugees are crammed into camps, and the news comes toward us every hour of the day."

In part, she told me in an interview, "I was really trying to come to terms with my own time," a time when we go about our lives as soldiers fight and people die in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To paint an accurate picture of 1940s-era London and America, Blake read histories and novels from the time period, Life magazines and great pieces of war reporting. (In her novel, Edward R. Murrow is Frankie's boss in London.)

"For historical fiction, you want to make a world which is absolutely credible," Blake said. "Your research can’t show at all."

Blake will read and sign copies of "The Postmistress" at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 1 at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road.

She's also available to speak by phone to book groups. To set up a book club talk, contact
Melissa Broder at melissa.broder@us.penguingroup.com.

Remembering Reynolds Price

In spring 2009, I went to Duke University to interview Reynolds Price about his new memoir, "Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back." That's how I ended up one morning in his legendary John Milton class, listening to him read from "Samson Agonistes" in his rich baritone: "This one prayer yet remains, might I be heard. No long petition -- speedy death."

At that moment, he certainly sounded like the Oxford-educated intellect he was.

But a few minutes later, the discussion grew lively -- and much more informal -- as Price lobbed questions and students offered answers on the motivation of Dalila, Samson's estranged wife.

Price, too, had a few thoughts about the couple. "Apparently," he said, "they were good sexual partners."

I interviewed Price later, after he took his daily break for physical therapy, required to stimulate blood circulation in his legs. By the time we finished, Price was offering to give my two teenagers a tour of Duke if they were interested in applying to the school. I felt like I'd made a new friend.

I've been replaying that lovely day in my mind since last week, when I wrote Price's obituary following his death Thursday afternoon at age 77. I think we cited most of Price's major accomplishments in the obituary, yet I left the newspaper building that night feeling there was so much more I wanted people to know. I wanted to mention:

--He was killer handsome. Check out the photo of a young Reynolds on the book cover above. The guy could have been a film star.

--He had a great sense of humor. Read "Ardent Spirits" and you'll see it. The memoir recounts six important years in Price's life, from 1955, when he left North Carolina to study as a Rhodes scholar in Oxford, to 1961, when he finished his first novel, "A Long and Happy Life." It's full of lively anecdotes. Like the time he and his new British friends were discussing dancing and Price asked the group if they also shagged: "My friends took a gap-mouthed moment of silence, staring at their plates in a textbook illustration of the British idiom for sudden embarrassment, I didn't know where to look. Then at last Michael said, "Well, seldom on the actual dance floor."

--He inspired, encouraged and mentored so many writers. Allan Gurganus ("Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All") was about 12 when he read "A Long and Happy Life." It was a revelation. Gurganus, who grew up in Rocky Mount, told me he had no idea you could set a novel in North Carolina until he read Price. "This was galvanizing," he said.
Price later became his mentor. "He has thousands of people who've been enlarged by him," Gurganus told me. "And I think he's especially good with beginners."

I could go on. He enjoyed watching soap operas. In his younger days, he sometimes wore a long black cape to class. Along with novels and plays and poetry, he wrote song lyrics, television commercials and, once, the text of a Calvin Klein ad.

Price had been in a wheelchair since treatment for spinal cancer left him a paraplegic in the mid-'80s. He lived with pain, yet hid it well. It was past deadline last week when my colleague, Bruce Siceloff, finally reached Price's brother. William Price Jr. told Bruce that his brother's pain during his last six months had been unrelenting.

"He bore his difficulties," Gurganus said, "with Job's own grace."

UNC Wilmington's new press strikes gold with its debut book

Just days after UNC Wilmington’s new Lookout Books released its debut book, The New York Times raved about it in a front-page review.

How unusual is it for a small, independent press to land a front-page New York Times review with its first book? It’s probably unprecedented.

“It’s like a rookie stepping up to the plate for the first time and hitting a grand slam,” says Lookout Editorial Director Ben George.

I was lucky to reach Lookout Books folks this morning. After glowing reviews of Edith Pearlman’s “Binocular Vision” from both The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, they’ve been swamped, responding to interview requests, queries from interested European publishers and emails from U.S. bookstores eager to host Pearlman for readings.

How did an unknown press get such attention?

For one thing, it had a great writer. Pearlman, who’s 74 and lives in Brookline, Mass., has won many accolades for her work, including three O. Henry Prizes. Three of her stories have also been selected for inclusion in “Best American Short Stories.” But like many good short-story writers, she wasn’t widely known.

One person who did know and love her work, however, was George. Formerly an editor with Tin House, a literary quarterly, George came to UNC Wilmington in 2008. He and Executive Director Emily Smith founded Lookout, a literary press that involves creative writing students in the publishing process.

George thought Pearlman would be a perfect fit for Lookout’s mission: To bring attention to emerging and underrepresented writers, as well as overlooked gems by established authors.
It often takes more than great writing to get a short-story collection noticed.

So the press came up with a savvy marketing plan. Knowing that Ann Patchett (“Bel Canto”) was a fan of Pearlman’s, George asked her to write an introduction to the stories. Patchett replied, George recalls, saying she loved Pearlman so much she’d happily pay for the privilege of writing an introduction.

This book, Patchett predicts in the introduction, “should be the book with which Edith Pearlman casts off her secret-handshake status and takes up her rightful position as a national treasure. Put her stories beside those of John Updike and Alice Munro. That’s where they belong.”

Other literary heavyweights, including T.C. Boyle (“The Tortilla Curtain”) and Brock Clarke (“An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England”), also contributed glowing blurbs. If those weren’t enough, Smith and George enticed reviewers and booksellers with an appealing narrative.

“The narrative is Edith’s story,” Smith says. “She’s 74 and has been writing remarkable stories for decades with little fanfare. When we wrote to some key people, we invited them to discover Edith Pearlman.”
A few days before Christmas, Smith got word via voicemail that The New York Times Book Review was planning a front-page review. “I could barely hold the phone,” she says. She telephoned George with the news.

“I remember saying, ‘Did you say cover? Are you sure, cover?’” George says.
The review, by Roxana Robinson, begins: “Why in the world had I never heard of Edith Pearlman? And why, if you hadn’t, hadn’t you? It certainly isn’t the fault of her writing, which is intelligent, perceptive, funny and quite beautiful.”

Lookout has already ordered a second printing from Winston-Salem’s John F. Blair Publisher and predicts printing about 10,000 books in all.

“Everyone likes the story of a wrong being righted,” George says, “of a writer working out of the limelight for years, finally being recognized.”

Pearlman will visit UNCW in March for the official launch of Lookout Books. She’ll read at 7 p.m., March 3 in Morton Hall Auditorium. A reception and book signing will follow.

Lookout, meanwhile, is planning its next publication. Steve Almond’s “God Bless America,” a story collection, will be out in October.

And George, as he tries to describe his reaction to this unexpected success, says he’s attempting to avoid cliches: “I was talking to a friend and saying I won’t use that cliché that it was beyond my wildest dreams. But it is on par with my wildest dreams.”

Queens' MFA program to celebrate with big-name authors

Book lovers, mark your calendars for May 21.

That's the night the Low-Residency MFA Program at Queens University of Charlotte celebrates its 10th anniversary. A gala event will include readings by renowned authors who also happen to be on the MFA faculty.

Among them:

Elizabeth Strout, author of the novel "Olive Kitteridge," winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Robert Polito, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for "Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson."

North Carolina Poet Laureate Cathy Smith Bowers.

Jonathan Dee, author of "The Privileges," named a New York Times Notable Book of 2010.

Vanity Fair contributing editor Elissa Schappell.

The gala is open to the public. It's 6:30-10 p.m. Tickets, at $50, go on sale in April.

Rick Bragg joins Southern Living

Fans of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rick Bragg can now read him regularly in Southern Living magazine. He's begun writing a monthly back-page column called "Southern Journal."

Bragg's best-known book is "All Over But the Shoutin'," a memoir of growing up poor in Alabama.

Bad weather postpones "Science of Single" author to Wednesday

Park Road Books has rescheduled "The Science of Single" author Rachel Machacek's reading and book signing from tonight to Wednesday, Jan. 12, 7 p.m. at the store, 4139 Park Road.
Machacek's memoir recounts her year spent going on dates with some 60 guys as she explored the range of resources that help people meet up and date.

"Science of Single" author at Park Road Books Jan. 11

Rachel Machacek probably has more bad date stories than most people.
There's good reason for that: The 37-year-old Washington D.C. resident went out with some 60 different guys as she explored online dating, singles events, matchmaking services and dating coaches, all in the interest of research.

The result? Her new book, "The Science of Single," which The Washington Post says is "equal parts funny, mortifying and insightful and stands to make Machacek into the Bridget Jones of Washington."

Machacek has braved the snow to get to Charlotte. She'll read from and sign copies of her book at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 11 at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road.

She may offer a few dating tips, too. Some basic advice: "Try different ways to meet people -- like going online, going to singles events, telling friends you want to be set up." Finding the right guy, she told me "is not just going to happen. It's work."