Advance copies of Jonathan Evison’s new novel, West of Here, started landing on doorsteps this week.
The description will make you want to read it:
Set in the fictional town of Port Bonita, on Washington State’s rugged Pacific coast, West of Here is propelled by a story that both re-creates and celebrates the American experience—it is storytelling on the grandest scale. With one segment of the narrative focused on the town’s founders circa 1890 and another showing the lives of their descendants in 2006, the novel develops as a kind of conversation between two epochs, one rushing blindly toward the future and the other struggling to undo the damage of the past.
An exposition on the effects of time, on how something said or done in one generation keeps echoing through all the years that follow, and how mistakes keep happening and people keep on trying to be strong and brave and, most important, just and right, West of Here harks back to the work of such masters of Americana as Bret Harte, Edna Ferber, and Larry McMurtry, writers whose fiction turned history into myth and myth into a nation’s shared experience. It is a bold novel by a writer destined to become a major force in American literature.
Delicious, no? Well, check this out:
Apparently, Evison’s publisher, Algonquin, loves this book enough to give the advance copies packaging that is, simply, too cool for school. A couple of boxes, postcards, maps, a letter from the book’s editor and — oh, yeah — the book itself.
My friend Jim Thomsen, the lucky recipient of one of these packages, forwarded me some photos. Check it:
Isn’t that just the coolest damn thing ever?
In a few weeks, I’ll be sending out some review copies of my next novel — and I’m suddenly, surprisingly, sad to say that they’ll go out in plain padded envelopes. Maybe I’ll stick some Necco wafers in there, just to amp up my game a little.
Visit Jonathan’s website here. And better yet, buy his book. I have a feeling it’s going to be big.
8 comments
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August 19, 2010 at 8:01 am
Kimberly Parker
This sounds gooood! And yes, the packaging is awesomeness. Let me know when your plain white padded envelope of Rad Love arrives. Ha ha! *sigh* 🙂
August 19, 2010 at 8:47 am
Lauren Alissa Hunter
Book sounds intriguing… I will definitely be adding it to my Good Reads list… just linked here through your guest post on Blood Red Pencil… I wish you the best with your latest book, and hope to get there myself someday!
August 19, 2010 at 8:49 am
craiglancaster
@Kim: Will do. I’m eagerly awaiting it.
@Lauren: Thanks for swinging by! (And, please, come back.) Good luck with your writing.
August 19, 2010 at 9:11 am
Rebecca @ The Book Lady's Blog
These photos put mine to shame! Thanks for the link love. Can’t wait to read the book.
August 19, 2010 at 9:17 am
craiglancaster
Thank you, Rebecca! I’ll add you to my blogroll. Hope to see you ’round these parts again.
August 19, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Jim Thomsen
In case you didn’t get the full perspective, the package is created to look like the kind of box in which smoked, vacuum-sealed salmon is delivered. “High Tide Seafood” is Jonathan’s fictional creation, brought to realistic period life by the wizardry of his publisher’s art department. Same with the pictures of Port Bonita, which, again, is Jon’s creation (though rigidly faithful to the look and character of the Washington state port towns of the late 1800s).
According to Jon, about 1,000 of these will sell for something like $60 apiece. The cost per unit to the publisher, he tells me, is quite a bit higher — meaning that Algonquin’s willingness to carry a loss-leader product is equal to its belief in Jon as an author. And its belief that Jon’s book will be huger than huge.
All available evidence to date supports that belief.
January 2, 2011 at 11:40 am
2010 in review « Craig Lancaster | A Mind Adrift in the West
[…] Package envy August 2010 6 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com, My Twitter feed […]
January 24, 2011 at 8:10 am
Giveaway: “West of Here” « Craig Lancaster | A Mind Adrift in the West
[…] Evison’s second novel. If you haven’t noticed, let me refresh your memory: There was this. And this. And this. And […]