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Saturday, March 15, 2014

"Entertainment Weekly," loving "Catherwood"--

CATHERWOOD. Marly Youmans. A heart-stopping novel about a mother lost in the woods with her 1-year-old. It's insanity that no one's made a movie out of this. Entertainment Weekly, p. 42.  March 14, 2014
And here it is again as part of Entertainment Weekly's  "10 Most Criminally Underrated Books." Click and see! And thank you very much, EW staff.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux edition
The publishing history of Catherwood (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996) is that it arrived at FSG on a Monday and was bought for a first edition hardcover by editor Elizabeth Dyssegaard two mornings later. That's fast. I always felt that it was a great triumph to make a Danish executive editor stay up late and weep. It went into paperback with the newly-revived Bard imprint (but subsequently HarperCollins collapsed and restructured, so that was the end of Bard.) And the book was translated into Spanish, French, and German. One month my agent had a rush of seven queries about movie rights and then sold one-year rights to director Stacey Title and actor Jonathan Penner, but they didn't raise quite enough money for the project. Still, I was innocent enough to dream that everything would be easy from then on. The book was a Literary Guild alternate and had splendid reviews in splendid places, some of which you may see here.

Hat tips:
Bard edition

Thank you to publisher/editor Gordon Van Gelder of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for telling writer Jeffrey Ford about this and asking him to send on the word, and then for sending me a xerox so I could see for myself. Either Cooperstown does not carry Entertainment Weekly, or else it sells out immediately!

Also, thank you to writer Melinda Jane Harrison for telling me what was in the text while I was still curious. Because a person--this person--is always curious. Thank you to Gary Dietz for the online link. And thanks to all you others who wrote to tell me!

9 comments:

  1. This is on my list of 'buys' - once available again.
    How did this ever slip through the net?
    It makes no sense at all.
    None.

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  2. Thanks for the shares and social media comments here, there, and everywhere, y'all! Click to see some of the social media comments...

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  3. http://beyondeastrod.blogspot.com/

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  4. Oh, glad you're still blogging, Tim. You might find this link useful if you're going to stay on blogspot: how to add a hotlink in blogspot comments.

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  5. Wooo hooo!!!! Triumph! May it lead to Victory.

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  6. Here is hoping that E.W.'s notice brings you more sales and much more well deserved celebrity and prestige.

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    Replies
    1. I do wish "Catherwood" had already been back in print when that happened, but such things are always a help.

      What I really like is the idea of more readers!

      Delete

Alas, I must once again remind large numbers of Chinese salesmen and other worldwide peddlers that if they fall into the Gulf of Spam, they will be eaten by roaming Balrogs. The rest of you, lovers of grace, poetry, and horses (nod to Yeats--you do not have to be fond of horses), feel free to leave fascinating missives and curious arguments.