|
Publishing Industry News (PIN) brings you news, information, and opinion with a Futurian, digital, self-publishing slant. This week's featured, successful self-published author is Irma Rombauer, whose famous classic The Joy of Cooking has never been out of print—now in its 80th year on most North American family bookshelves.
|
Writers and Addiction. Many years ago (in the 1970s), Writer's Market ran an outstanding article on this topic. I vaguely remember that they queried or interviewed about 25 prominent authors about their drinking habits. All but one or two either said they don't drink at all, or they drink moderately, or they fudged about their bibbling. One man, whose name I forget, gamely confessed to polishing off a quart of whiskey every night. He was a famous poet, and he was dead a few years later. I tend to think that sobriety became a necessary trait of the successful author several decades ago. It's a competitive business, and the well-functioning scrivener today must train like an Olympian to stay in shape. He or she must watch calories, jog daily like an airborne ranger, eat salad, and drink that very snurky half-glass of dry chablis that's more chore and bore than joy to linger over… (The Millions 27 July 2011)
|
The Case for Middlefeeders (or Not?). This Publishing Industry News (PIN) article is very important in the context of PIN's mission. The linked article seems to stake out a case for the vast, money-raking sea-bottom industry that has replaced the old vanity and subsidy publishers. This article is not meant as a critique of any person or company mentioned in the article. That company may in fact offer you the solution that you feel is right for your needs. My argument is generically aimed toward a well-known element—more specifically, the old vanity and subsidy scams, and whatever modern inheritors the digital revolution may have spawned. That element has been present in the publishing environment for well over half a century, functioning destructively and dishonestly in the shadow of the New York City Big Six monopoly. Writers are among the most gullible, hungry individuals on earth (before they learn the nuts and bolts of the business, either the hard way, or by listening to well-founded advice). We'll take the opportunity here to review the spectrum of publishing opportunities and choices for authors. Again, this is not a critique of any single company or way of doing business, but of a way of losing your money and gaining only heart-ache in return. Above all, learn the industry (it's not hard) and make informed, entrepreneurial decisions.
On one end of the spectrum lies the author who is selected for investment (to 'get published') by the Big Six monopolies in New York City. For a handful (maybe two dozen) authors this has resulted in a financial bonanza. The vast majority of 'published' authors vanish into the out-of-print purgatory, or languish on the now more precarious than ever Midlist. My brilliantly gifted and Pulitzer Prize winning friend Bill Dietrich recently blogged about this. Bill's adventure novels are among the best you can find today. Media attention seems to more readily go to a horde of empty air heads and drug addicts whose long, slow unwinding down the death spiral draws hypnotic attention. Even a truly gifted author like Bill Dietrich still struggles to receive well-deserved attention. That's the reality, which you must weigh when silver-tongued sales people offer you 'a package' that can't be beat (yeah, right).
At the other end of the spectrum lies the entrepreneurial, do it yourself (DIY) or publish it yourself (PIY) author who maintains total control of his or her book from writing to marketing to retail.
(Continued below… (Book Business July 2011)
|
Unbound (or Unwound?) Seeks To Reinvent E-Publishing Before Its Time. During the early days of web-based publishing, before even e-commerce arrived in the late 1990s, all sorts of inventive people tried to create metaphors for making money selling text. A typical scheme that dates back centuries, adapted to pixelspace, involved someone putting out a virtual hat on their website. If you liked the free download, you could send them a check. One guy's idea was rather droll: He would sell you Chapter 1 for a dollar. If you liked it, you could send him another check, and he would e-mail you Chapter 2. And so on, and on, and on, until your checkbook was devoid of checks, you had spent more on stamps than on the book itself, and if his book was as dumb as his idea, you were no doubt pissed off. I don't imagine anyone was silly enough to follow his instructions, or they probably deserved what they got…just sayin'. Well anyway, there is no end to geniuses inventing new ways to put old wine in new bottles, hoping it will make Chateau Lafite Rothschild out of Old Sneaky Pete. Call it Unsound. I actually think the industry is reinventing itself at a splendid pace, and in a splendid manner, without the help of guys with hats, and chapters… (Fast Company 27 July 2011)
Maybe We Can Learn From Music? Speaking of reinventing the wheel, here is a meditation on the music industry. A new European technology—oh God! Teabaggers, do handstands out of vapid rage!—has filtered across to the brass domes of U.S. music moguls. It's called Spotify, and it's all the rage now. How to make more money? How to capture that creativity from those pesky musicians, when we have no talent ourselves? This fascinating new concept from across the big wet ripple is called advertising-driven, free content. Wasn't that already in place here, over half a century ago, as we pioneered commercial-driven network TV? Remember Tales of Tomorrow and As The World Turns, on that little grayscale eye-TV, constantly interrupted with excited news about suds, laxatives, more suds, bubbles, beer, hair tonic, and those doctor-approved cigarettes? Looking at the source of this article, I still get breathless e-mails from The New York Times with the regularity of an Ex-Lax purge, wheedling that I should subscribe on their weekly plan, while threatening to cut me off after 25 views or whatever. I can see the need for money. But why the hat, the cane, and the sunglasses? I'll take them seriously when they come up with a serious idea. Same for the brass-domed sultans of cha-cha-cha on Madison Avenue… (New York Times 27 July 2011)
Borders: Yet One More Reflection on Bookstores. You can't argue with success. This man started a publishing business (Soft Skull Press) in 2001 and ended a good run by 2009 with at least one Pulitzer Prize in the bag, and many bestsellers. He has some pertinent things to say. This includes the by-now moribund topic of why print publishing is going the way of horse and buggy, swords and sandals, and other anachronisms. The answer: because something better has come along, which happens to be the digital book. A few points of order. The author says that many people "think of bookstore clerks as just underpaid drones"—I see them as English majors facing reality. The author barely mentions e-books, so he appears to make a plea for more print stores. I will sorely miss Borders for my many hours of happy walking, browsing, conversation, and coffee. I also fervently believe in free markets, and I think someone smarter than most of the people in charge (what else is new?) will reinvent the retail experience with a digital slant—and lots of fresh coffee, conversation, and people watching… (CNN 21 July 2011)
Science Fiction and Fantasy: Growing. It's okay to talk about apples and oranges sometimes. While the print industry is shrinking on all fronts, the SF/F genres are gaining market share. A reasonable conclusion is that SF/F/DF/H are a leading growth category, therefore, in the New (digital) Publishing industry. This idea seems borne out by the fact that imaginative fiction has been a key readership since 2000 at digital pioneer Fictionwise. From the earliest days—aside from recalcitrant, pulp-oriented Backwardians and future-haters at SFWA (talk about absurd)—many of the early adapters of technology were also Futurians interested in digital reading. The report suggests that science fiction and fantasy as a marketing segment of overall fiction are growing. The two different branches of the larger speculative and imaginative literature field, which also includes dark fantasy and horror, are usually lumped into one shelf category in stores, while horror is put with Literature because it attracts a less specialized readership. As the print industry as we've known it fades into history, so do its retail outlets as we have known them. With that, presumably, go the limitations inherent in shelf categories, based on limited space in physical bookstores. In a virtual, digital book retailing environment—whether online, or the coming physical e-stores I predict—it is possible, even preferable, to more sharply delineate segments according to established reader tastes. A great case in point is found at ten-year-old Fictionwise, the greatest pioneer in early commercial e-book retailing. Fiction is broken up into fifteen categories, with speculative fiction broken up into several segments, including separate science fiction and fantasy spaces. What's the difference? SF has been defined as the literature of what is possible and plausible, whereas Fantasy has been described as the literature of what is impossible and plausible—both being fun to read, for very different reader tastes (lumped together by the ignorant as 'sigh-fie')… (Book Business 27 July 2011)
Pulitzer-Prize Author Bill Dietrich Blogs on Dreams and Realities of Publishing. My brilliantly gifted and Pulitzer Prize winning friend Bill Dietrich recently blogged about how it is for that small group of NY-published authors who make it through the slash-and-burn gate-keeping process, survive past the mostly fatal Midlist, and achieve a status just shy of the stratosphere with its two dozen writer-moguls (Stephen King, Danielle Steel, and the usual suspects). Bill's adventure novels are among the best you can find today. Media attention seems to more readily go to a horde of empty air heads and drug addicts whose long, slow unwinding down the death spiral draws hypnotic attention. Even a truly gifted author like Bill Dietrich still struggles to receive well-deserved attention. Anyone being seduced by the silver-tongued sales mavens of the subsidy industry, in all of its forms, would be well-advised to take this in a sober and harsh light. Writing fiction is the best emotional and intellectual passion I can think of, among mankind's higher instincts. Publishing fiction is a tough game, and there are no shortcuts or pie in the sky. Even genuine success can be painful… (Bill Dietrich Blog July 2011)
|
Continued from Middlefeeders above: Inbetween lie the same old sharks that have patrolled the fertile underwater shoals of gullible and naive writers' hopes and dreams for many generations.
PIN is working to warn new authors about the dangers (lost money, lost time, shattered dreams) inherent in this sub-industry. More money than ever before is being earned by middlefeeders who will generally produce a 'nice' book that is not the same as an *effective* book (sells copies). It's generally an update on the old vanity and subsidy schemes, where authors paid tons of money for gorgeous, leather-bound tomes that ended up rotting in their garage, because no retailer would permit a copy within 100 feet of their store.
Even if you still select this path, at your enormous peril, reading PIN should help you be a far more informed author, making intelligent and logical choices. Involvement with middlefeeders usually runs this course: a sales approach, silver-tongued and ever-convincing; a dance of delirious joy by the victim, who as yet understands nothing about what is really a very simple business, because that's how the Big Six monopoly and some of their academic acolytes preferred to keep it, shrouded in mystery and sanctimoniousness; followed by a contract and the expenditure of thousands of dollars; followed by the arrival of one or more crates of 'nice' books; and soon after, the sinking feeling that sales hover near zero; and ultimately, as sales month after month stay near zero, the bath of tears, the waves of bleak and hopeless emotion, and the realization that one was just had.
Let PIN help you be an informed author, not one of those who has to learn the hard way. Whether you rely on a middlefeeder to publish your book, or run your own business, you are ultimately on your own cognizance and responsibility—so why not take charge, up front, learn the business, save your money, and actually stand some chance of at least moderate success? Moderate success with little out of pocket puts you in the same ball park as 95% of all small businesses including shop owners. That alone is fun and success by any definition. Not everyone can be Macy's or Wal*Mart, but the world is full of happy small-business owners, and a publishing business that sells 100 copies, 500 copies, or some such reasonable number per month is in itself a great accomplishment.
One of the key missions of PIN is to help willing and ambitious authors get past the snares and webs of middlefeeders, who rarely, if ever, deliver the prize: a book that actually sells, when all the smoke and mirrors are gone, along with the silver-tongued sales pitches and the insanely happy, dancing around "I'm gonna be rich and famous—if only I had a clue how any of it works" uplift before lots of money is gone, and the pie arrives in one's face.
My point is, from experience: unless one figures out how to hype one's book, without pissing more people off than those who buy, you have one solid law of the universe to rely on. No amount of personal connections, time spent annoying people with inept marketing, social networking, or money spent on middlefeeders will actually convince readers to buy your book.
What convinces people to buy your book is the same thing that convinces them to buy a book from Random Hose or any other Big Six imprint. The path to selling a product (shoes, tomatoes, poems) is essentially the same: potential buyer browses, looks at products, lifts and puts several down, eventually comes back to My Fair Novel. At that point, they look at the spine, the title, the cover image, the blurb on the back, and read the first page. Right about there is the decision point to either buy, not buy, or put it down but remember to look at it again next time. That's a typical bookstore process. Online, it's similar, but virtual. You still need to present an *effective* (sells books) Package (not just a manuscript, not just a 'nice' picture, but a killer package consisting of a well-presented spine, title, marketing image, marketing text (blurbs), and an exciting story that begins with a grabby hook.
There is a spectrum here. On one end, one 'gets published' and has no control over any of it, nor does one really come to understand the business from nuts and bolts up. All best selling authors understand publishing as a business—many spend less time writing than they spend marketing (their already established personal brand, which is light years from where a novice sits). At the other end, you are a business person, an entrepreneur, who manages his or her own business, be it a flower shop, shoe store, or small press. Both of these extremes have a critical point in common: their sale most likely depends on the effectiveness of their Package. That is, when the reader starts reading Chapter One, they will either be hooked or not. No amount of expensive cover art, wordy and exuberant blurbs, and gushy approval from fellow struggling authors will convince the reader even remotely as much as the effectiveness of your opening page.
Here's why: aside from generally known but little understood (in practical terms) 'rules of writing', the typical avid reader is looking for a relationship. This is fodder for an article one day soon, because it is the most critical thing in writing fiction. If you can create one or two sympathetic characters that the reader will enjoy spending time with, they'll buy your book. If not, all else is a waste of time and money. Only you, the writer, can create this. Nobody else. I've seen self-promoting book doctors (witch doctors, I call them) ruin a person's book by injecting their sleazy, half-baked, and ill-written ways of jazzing up your book (actually ruining it).
The best single way to achieve the gut-level knowledge you need, as a writer, is from a good reading and critique group. There are three kinds, the first two of which you should avoid like the plague: (1) they offer only pleasing but hollow praise, and you learn nothing; (2) worse yet, there are those who want to critique, but have no talent, are not writers, are usually immature and nutty, and seek to personally hurt you by both slamming your work and cutting you personally; (3) the real thing: intelligent, mature, sympathetic, but unwaveringly honest readers who listen to your piece, offer you what praise you deserve, and then move on to the important part, which is giving you at least one useful, cogent bit of honest critique.
Now, all of that said, what is the role for middlefeeders? I draw a distinction. If you are an entrepreneur, you will know your limits. Nobody should be their own editor. You must spell-check, but you should invest in a professional, real editor who, for realistic pay, will give you a real line edit. Critiques you can get for free in a good writer's group and the like. Many people have the sense to know they are not artists capable of creating an *effective* cover (not the same as a nice cover, an artistic cover, or anything else). *Effective* means it helps sell your book. We'll talk about cover art in an article soon. As an entrepreneur, you do not self-publish in the older, pejorative sense that marks one as a loser (based entirely on the self-delusional grandeur of those in the print industry, and their cause is disproven every week as PIN rolls out yet another successful Chris Paolini, Beatrix Potter, Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane, James Joyce, or other great author who did not get past the gate keepers of mediocrity).
I draw a distinction between entrepreneurial middleness, and 'getting published.' Many of the middlefeeders offer 'packages' and take lots of money and generally deliver at best a 'nice' book, but I know of few real success stories. You can format your own book. If you are smart enough to write a book, you can do it. You can create (or pay to have made) an *effective* marketing image for your digital book, or an *effective* cover (front, spine, back) for your print edition.
I would argue that it is a mistake to surrender control over the packaging and business surrounding your book. Silver-tongued sales people will assure you that you remain in control. But here's the Catch-22. If you don't understand this simple business, how can you be in control? On the other hand, if you understand what is at its essence a simple business, you'll ask yourself why you should pay middlefeeders to do what you yourself can do. Always remember: nobody loves your book like you do.
Now in defense of middlemen, let this be said. If, for example, you have a simple, realistic goal, a simple, realistic solution may apply. Let's say you want to publish your granddad's Vietnam War saga, as one young woman did, who approached me for advice, years ago. She understood it was an important part of history—the glorious commando raid conducted with troops from several services, about which future historians would welcome all details. She did not envision it as a bestseller or a pot of money. She was not dancing around deliriously laughing and sobbing "I'm going to be published!" She envisioned a print run of about 100 copies, of which she hoped to place a few in libraries locally, send a few to historians, and donate a number to each family member. That is a doable, practical, and realistic goal. She does not need to learn how to flow text and create covers. She can well afford the quicker solution of finding a local artist to design a cover, maybe even do a few internal sketches; find someone to proofread (line edit) her book; and find an inexpensive local print shop that has published this trim size and style of book before. Done deal. Nothing to it. Whenever sales people are involved, the process tends to become dramatically more expensive to pay more middlemen. Before contracting with a national company, think about the options for even such a simple project. It won't hurt to have your memoir or similar book available in Kindle and other platforms, which involves a more national solution.
Now consider this: I was once called to interview a woman who claimed she had a very important and dramatic story. She wanted someone to 'put it in a book' and publish it so we could both get rich (which is the other laugh after 'get published'). Her husband had died, he'd been a Mediterranean-ethnic gangster, and she finally felt safe to go public. I was intended as the on-spec ghost writer, which is usually a work for hire, which I've done also. In the latter case, you get paid a lump sum, and the buyer owns all the rights, including the right to publish it under their name. Here, I would take all the risks, for no up front, and there was no guarantee of any payoff. I knew up front that there was no way I would devote months of writing and editing to such a task, but I was hungry and game. As I interviewed her, I put my newspaper reporter and other journalistic skills to use, angling around for a dramatic framework to hang the story on. The best we got was that her husband would leave her for other women, get the other women pregnant, and bring his children by them to this woman to be raised. She apparently did this for years. I was about to close the notebook and bid her adieu, but tried for one last shot. What did he die of? As a gangster, did he die in a violent, dramatic bloodbath on the order of the spaghetti and tomato-sauce drenched machine gun orgy in The Godfather? No, he died of an infection from an ingrown toenail. With that, I said my goodbyes and quickly left. The point is: There are many stories like this that two or three people in one's family might appreciate, but they don't warrant a publishing expenditure or a marketing campaign. If you want to publish a family memoir in which Uncle Oskar dies of an infected toenail, take the simplest and cheapest route. It won't involve middlefeeders.
Middlefeeders love your money and your helplessness. I do not question your ambition, because you persevered and finished a book. That's more than 99.9% of the population will ever achieve. Now you just need to go the extra mile, because your book is your child, and nobody loves your book like you do. If you ever had a lemonade stand in the summer as a child, you already know half of what you need to know to run a business. Of course, there is critical adult stuff the child doesn't understand. My first self-published (in the non-subsidy meaning of the term) books were little home-made experiments that I sold with surprising success, on a very small scale, in local retail shops.
With modern marketing and technology, the field is wide open for you to write, package, and sell your book in all major retail outlets (not the print stores, which are all but closed to outsiders) online, and on the major platforms (Nook, Kindle, etc.). Those outlets are looking for the next Paolini or Hocking or Locke. It's all about money, and they want to find the next James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Walt Whitman, or other famous self-published author.
Ultimately, this is what PIN offers in this regard: an informed opinion. If you study everything published at PIN, you'll gain a fairly good understanding of the rudiments of the publishing industry. You will also pick up some great tips on writing as well, as in last week's article on how to write an *effective* (sells books) thriller.
You have several choices:
(1) you can continue searching for an agent in hopes of landing that ever more elusive contract with a Big Six print monopoly and 'get published' when and if that ever happens;
(2) you can 'get published' by a fake middlefeeder company that promises you the same ride as at a Big Six, but they are just a scam because of their faulty premise and false promises, and have absolutely no marketing reach; in fact, most are little different from the notorious old vanity presses;
(3) you can learn all there is to know at PIN and other information services, so that you are an informed chooser, and still choose a package with a middle-firm that you feel is *effective* (and perhaps get burned, or not; and learn from the bitter loss of time, money, and hope); or
(4) be an entrepreneur as well as author, and learn how to *effectively* (sells books) publish your work under your entire control. In the latter case, you may decide to farm out (pay for) services like cover art based on your sound judgment as an entrepreneur; or you may end up doing your own cover, which can be fun. In my recent inside articles, I have noted for example that the ultra-successful marketing campaign for Erich Segal's Love Story (novel and movie) involved a simple white cover with just the title on it in letters: Love Story. One could say that Love Story became Success Story. Of course, if every book were done in this dramatic, stark manner, there would be no originality to it—but this 1970s smash hit offers its object lessons, as all success stories do. We'll discuss cover art in an inside article soon. It's not that hard if you study bookstore examples and think about how to convey your book's message in a single, immediately gripping combination of picture and words.
This article, like all proprietary material on this website, is Copyright © 2011 by John T. Cullen. All rights reserved. You may not copy or use this text or these images for any purpose whatsoever, under potentially severe penalty of law, without express and specific written permission of John T. Cullen.
|
|
 PIY: Formatting Your POD Print Book. If you have created a Smashwords interior text file, using my earlier instructions and free template, you can baseline the same file for your print edition. Here's how…
Irma Rombauer, Author and Self-Publisher. Irma Rombauer (Wikipedia info) was a 54-year-old housewife in St. Louis, Missouri in 1931, when she first published her famous cookbook. In 1930, as the Great Depression started hitting home with all of its poverty, hunger, and hopelessness, her husband since 1898, Edgar, committed suicide. Her son and daughter were of marrying age and about to leave home. Irma had built something of a life around her Unitarian Church, and had taught some classes on cooking. As is the custom in many U.S. parishes and congregations of all faiths, Irma had written a book of recipes that she shared with the ladies at her church. Now she began to cast about for a new source of income during the all-around most difficult decade in the 20th Century. We may surmise that the cover done by Irma Rombauer humorously evokes her psychological state at the time. Her original, 1931, self-made Depression-era cover featured a housewife with tight purse in one hand, and wet mop in the other, slaying the type of dragon that may occur in any kitchen...the book had a religious overtone, and was dedicated to St. Martha of Bethany, patron saint of cooks, cooking, and kitchens.
The Process, or Recipe.. Irma's daughter Marion, who had artistic, writing, and editorial talent, and who would one day take charge of the monument that her mother built in 1931, wrote a detailed account of how it all came about. We may compare the mechanics of her approach with those of Virginia Woolf in the U.K. and Chris Paolini's family, generations later, in the early 21st Century USA. Here is how Marion Rombauer describes the recipe by which neophytes published  a book: "…How naive and straightforward was our approach to publishing! We simply called in a printer. I remember the Saturday morning he arrived, laden with washable cover fabrics, type and paper samples. In a few hours all decisions were made, and shortly afterwards we signed a contract for 3,000 copies complete with mailing cartons and individualized stickers. Then came the new experience of galleys, proofreading and preparing an index…" Compare this with how Virginia Woolf and her husband already had experience in the printing business, as did Walt Whitman (who could typeset his own books). Contrast this with the canny Paolinis, who orchestrated a full court press to get their son's book printed and distributed. By comparison, Irma and her helpers were sheer neophytes—but they tackled the unknown, and the rest is history. They made up in courage and determination what they lacked in publishing and marketing know-how. We can learn from all these self-publishers who became full-fledged publishers in their own right.
.
Umnitsa: The Good Girl
Historical/Espionage/Love Story
In the tradition of
Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, John Le Carré's Naive and Sentimental Lover, and Graham Greene's The Third Man, but Umnitsa is ground-breaking and in a class of its own. At key moments, it will also remind readers of the movie Chinatown starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.
Umnitsa: The Good Girl This unconventional love story is complex, and by turns tragic and exhilarating. Its style and themes recall Boris Pasternak's writing textures and themes in Doctor Zhivago. If Pasternak's novel is an enigmatic slice of life in Russia at a historical pivot, then Umnitsa is likewise an enigmatic slice of life in the U.S. at its greatest historical turning point. San Francisco, in 1945, at the intersection of two epic wars (World War II and the Cold War) is a mad and brooding capital of rioting and passion. A dark, heavy atmosphere of espionage envelops the founding of the United Nations that summer, as well as the final preparations to drop the world's two first atomic bombs in war.
Framing the story is the 1991 search by a wealthy French countess for her long-lost father. Marianne Didier is a wealthy, glamorous, but troubled French jet-setter. She was adopted as a toddler, out of squalor and hopelessness in post-World War II Siberia. Her legacy from her long-dead mother includes the affectionate term Umnitsa, good or clever girl. Though she has everything life can offer, she is missing one all-important piece. From her base in Paris, she goes on a search for her long-lost father while the Soviet Union collapses in 1991 and the world changes. Her journey takes her around the world, and frames the story (1942-1945) of her
 long-lost father back in his prime during World War II.
During World War II, courageous, handsome young U.S. Navy officer Tim Nordhall pursues a Soviet-Nazi-Allied triple agent (Jaguar), who is deeply involved in atomic espionage. Tim Nordhall's adventures take him from the deserts and jungles of Africa, to London during the Blitz, and finally wartime San Francisco in 1945. In London, the naive clockmaker from Connecticut encounters the great, beautiful love of his life, a Free Polish Army nurse named Anna Stokowska. One of the women in Tim's life will bear him the lost child around which the entire novel circles. Anna, Tim, and other memorable characters fade in and out in the fog of war, while the ruthless espionage services of the Great Powers ply their shadowy and ubiquitous trade.
San Francisco, like Paris a world-class City of Love, is in 1945 a wild brawl of war-weary young men and women. Atomic bomb material destined for Hiroshima and Nagasaki passes through en route to Tinian. Secret agents from around the world conduct shadowy warfare, including two remarkable women spies who become Tim's lovers. Tens of thousands of lusty, brawling young men and women party and work in the waning months of an epic war. San Francisco is a rainy neon blur, whose slick streets rattle with gunfire from passing cars, whose windows glow with parties and jazz, and whose dark doorways shelter terrified and curious eyes. The title, Umnitsa: Good Girl, refers to a common Russian term of endearment for a girl-child, and is key to Marianne (Countess) Didier's desperate, lifelong search. Time flows inexorably, but sometimes its mysteries form an infinite circle that keeps doubling back upon itself…
.
|
|
