The Shanghai Gesture - New Gary Indiana Novel

We're pretty stoked (and I don't use that word lightly - I would never use that word lightly) to be publishing Gary Indiana's new novel, The Shanghai Gesture.

The acclaimed author of Do Everything in the Dark, Depraved Indifference, Let It Bleed, Resentment, Gone Tomorrow, and Rent Boy (among many others) returns with a modern take on Fu Manchu (beware!) that crackles with the sharp wit, nihilistic vision, and utterly original voice that have become lynchpins of the author's career.

When we know more, you'll know more.

PW Cover!

Publishers Weekly did a story in their May 5 issue on us, for a continuing series they're doing on 50 individuals involved in book publishing under the age of 40. The tag for this series is "50 Under 40".

In the 5/5 issue, they placed those profiled in this series to-date on their cover. Eliza and I happened to be the fortunate ones profiled in this particular issue.

We thank Lynn Andriani for the wonderful article and the graphics department for allowing us to use a picture where I'm wearing a lei.

The opening to the article: "Far from the cubicles of corporate Manhattan publishing, Eric Obenauf, 26, and Eliza Jane Wood, 28, run a publishing outfit called Two Dollar Radio out of their home in Granville, Ohio. The husband and wife sport tattoos of the company logo on their wrists. They put photos of their two-year-old daughter, Rio, and their dogs, Hoon and Scarlet, in their book catalogues. They both work second jobs: he waits tables and manages a restaurant; she proofreads textbooks. They used to live in New York, but the cost of living and running a business was too high, so they moved to Ohio, near family. “We have grass and stuff,” says Obenauf. They also have a fledgling publishing company that's on the verge of busting out from tiny to an official small press."

1940 update.

It all happened within a week (or little more than a week).

In it's May issue, Library Journal gave 1940 a glowing, Starred Review, saying: "This tautly constructed, utterly readable book raises questions the reader must answer. Highly recommended."

The Los Angeles Times published an absolutely marvelous review by Tim Rutten that couldn't have been more positive - which has, subsequently, been picked up by everyone from the Orlando Sentinel and the Chicago Tribune to Today's Zaman (the largest English-language newspaper in Turkey). Here is what Mr. Rutten had to say about the book:

"Jay Neugeboren traverses the Hitlerian tightrope with all the skill and formal daring that have made him one of our most honored writers of literary fiction and masterful nonfiction. This new book is, at once, a beautifully realized work of imagined history, a rich and varied character study and a subtly layered novel of ideas, all wrapped in a propulsively readable story. Neugeboren is marvelous. Part of the power of this intelligently and finely wrought novel is that... thoughts and questions arise unforced from the story, as though from life itself."

To complete the trifecta, Commonweal also bestowed praise upon 1940: "Jay Neugeboren's 1940 is a taut, nuanced, beautifully written novel that captures an anxious and uncertain time in ways that a straight rendering of facts and dates could never achieve. Neugeboren casts a spell on the first page of his novel that never goes away. This memorable work of historical fiction is to be contemplated as well as savored."

That's the latest, but, as always, there is rumor abound that there is plenty more to come.

Drop Edge of Yonder update.

Because this is part of a concerted effort to more consistently update our blog and provide web-viewers with the latest information, we begin with The Drop Edge of Yonder:

The Los Angeles Times Book Review called the book "A picaresque American Book of the Dead... in the tradition of Thomas Pynchon, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut and Terry Southern."

Arthur Magazine featured a substantial and wonderful 5-page article and interview by Joe O'Brien with author Rudolph Wurlitzer that covers everything from the publication of Rudy's first novel, Nog, to his Oscar-worthy acting stints in several scripts he wrote.

Mark Athitakis says, in a review of the book in the Washington City Paper, "In his hero, Zebulon Shook, Wurlitzer has invented a funny, acerbic, hugely compelling representative of American heroism... This is that rare story that improves as it expands, not unlike another rambling picaresque, Don Quixote."

Rudy just completed a radio interview with Bookworm's Michael Silverblatt in early May in New York City. Stay tuned for air date of the interview.