The Happy Booker

Movie Review by Richard Peabody

Guest film critic Richard Peabody is a prolific poet, fiction writer and editor.  Peabody teaches fiction writing for the Johns Hopkins Advanced Studies Program. Read more about him here and here.

Soundtrack to the Apocalypse?

“The ultimate cult artist, it is hard to think of another American who had such an impact on rock music as a whole while being almost completely unknown to his countrymen as Scott Walker.” – film Press Release

Any time I get depressed about my work not being recognized I take comfort in the fact that one of the musical geniuses active during my lifetime is almost completely unknown to the general public. 

At the Silver Docs Film Festival at the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring, MD Saturday  night I was among the 81 people who were fortunate to see the DC area premier of  Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, a film by Stephen Kijak. In so doing I gained a glimpse into the life of this hermetic enigmatic artist by seeing him at work in the sound studio (the first time he’s allowed anybody watch in eons), inner cut with an interview, plus interviews with a multitude of luminaries from Brian Eno and David Bowie, to Radiohead, Dot Allison, Alison Goldfrapp, and guitarist Johnny Marr.

One talking head credits Scott Walker with creating the first 21st-Century music. Perhaps that’s true.

For those who aren’t familiar with the man’s story— Noel Scott Engel (now 64) from Ohio began performing at about 15 years old. He was a pretty boy who fell in with another musician/singer John Maus and they set about playing LA as a duo--Scott on bass, John on guitar. They met Gary Leeds, a drummer who had been to England during the initial British Invasion, and so the trio invaded London together dubbed The Walker Brothers and in some weird colonial exchange became as big as the Beatles and Stones. Because John, the lead singer, couldn’t hit the notes on “Love Her” the B-side to their first single, the vocals fell to Scott’s baritone, and once the song hit, he became the featured vocalist from that point on, as well as a teen idol--a role he very much resented. In the film we learn that after one concert the teenyboppers flipped over the Walker’s van and had to be stopped by police from literally ripping the vehicle apart to get to the band.

DC Event

Have you made your weekend plans yet? Here's an event that's not to be missed: 

Novelist Susan Richards Shreve reads from Warm Springs, her compelling new memoir of her childhood, from ages 11 to 13, spent at the Warm Springs Polio Foundation in Georgia. In remembering her past, Shreve meditates on the meaning of identity and how the mature self relates to its younger, tumultuous adolescence.

Politics and Prose, Sunday, June 24, 5 p.m.

DC Event Tonight

Guest blogger Jennifer Oko has been a network news producer, a documentary filmmaker, a freelance print journalist, and an author. Her new novel Gloss is a sly and irresistibly dishy peek at the ratings-driven, celebrity mad world of TV news from a network insider. She is also the author of the memoir (written under her maiden name, Jennifer Beth Cohen) Lying Together:My Russian Affair.

You can catch Jennifer Oko read tonight at 7:30 at Barnes and Noble in Bethesda. 

Guest Blogger—Jennifer Oko

I am sitting at the Barnes and Noble café in Bethesda, MD, having just smeared cream cheese all over my keyboard and hoping that the damage caused won’t require me to run crying to the Mac “genius bar” down the street. The glamorous life of a just published author. This is actually not my usual writing venue, but two completely self-interested compulsions drove me here (really, what compulsions aren’t in some way self-interested?). The first is that I had to get my car repaired at the Honda dealership across the street and am now stuck in Bethesda until it gets fixed. The second is a little more fun… there is a large poster of me and my new book Gloss in the window.

Gloss was published last week and I am reading at this Barnes and Noble location on Tuesday night, and since the promotional life of a book tends to be short (and the publicity reach of a first time novelist is even shorter), I am trying to grab my thrills while I can.

John Grisham I am not. Not Michael Chabon either. And, as someone who works in the media (my day job is at CBS News), I am well aware that as much as authors need big press, the big press needs big authors. In fact, I was recently informed by one media entity that while they loved Gloss, due to a time/space issue they had to pull my appearance. Which is a bummer. And somewhat ironic since Gloss is a media satire, focusing in large part on the power of celebrity over the news business.  Perhaps my sitting here in the shadow of my poster is a little hypocritical because, after writing a book all critical of the celebrity/press relationship, I am soaking up what I can of my own personal 15 minutes (er, seconds?). Because it’s not just about book sales (though sales are certainly nice). It’s also about the quiet glory of seeing your book (the writing of which was once a private, almost secretive venture), publicly displayed on the shelves—and in the window—of a well-trafficked store.

FotHB Report—More from BEA

Our BEA round up continues. Here we bring you another FotHB Report from novelist and dear friend, Min Jin Lee.

FotHB Report—BEA with Min Jin Lee

I've been a New Yorker since 1976, but I'd never been inside the Javits Center. Can I sound like an out of towner and just say, holy #$*%! Javits is not quite Notre Dame, but it can feel as intense when it's tricked out for BookExpo America, and you're a first time author who took twelve years to produce her first novel. With what seems like thousands of stalls spilling over with hundreds of thousands of titles—mostly, I felt humbled by the zillions and zillions of words printed around the world and in America. I don't think I can handle much more than three days of BEA (the drawbacks being: harsh noise level and irredeemable meals), but I will confess here before any and all jaded BEA goers that I loved the panels, felt happy to hawk my audio book like a Canal Street vendor, and to give away copies of my novel gratis. My first impressions: Awe and shock, but my last word would be lucky. I felt lucky to be there.

Min Jin Lee is the author of the novel Free Food for Millionaires.

FotHB Report—BEA +LBC Party!

Want to know what you missed at BEA?  The stories are pouring in. Here's the first of our  Friend of the Happy Booker Reports from the ever-fabulous Lauren Cerand.

FotHB Report—LBC Party!

This year Book Expo America (BEA) was in New York, where I live, and which I find a bit boring at the moment, and perhaps my jaded perspective on the less than exotic location made for less excitement. Or perhaps I wouldn't say that I was less excited per se, maybe just a little OD'ed on books by the end of it all. As I said this afternoon to one of my friends, a bookseller at Bluestockings, "It's like that thing, when you get caught smoking, and then your parents make you smoke a whole pack of cigarettes to teach you a lesson..." And he said, "But I love cigarettes!"

Exactly.

For me, my BEA experience began officially on Thursday evening in Greenwich Village at the Lit Blog Co-op party, where Ms. Booker's presence was sorely missed. I enjoyed seeing so many of my friends, new and old, and favorite people from out of town, including LBC members Mark Sarvas, Dan Wickett, Anne Fernald, Carolyn Kellogg, Levi Asher, Edward Champion, et al; hypercool publishing types: Richard Nash, Colson Whitehead , Timothy Schaffert, mastermind behind the so-hot-it-hurts Omaha Lit Fest, book promotion doyenne Bella Stander and her entourage of debut authors Tish Cohen and Patry Francis, and dynamite authors whose books I've publicized: Jami Attenberg , Katharine Weber, and many more. Seriously, so many more that maybe I should have jotted down notes on my hand as I floated around but I was having far too much fun, as the case should be.

Friday night, I made a rare sojourn to Brooklyn for the much-touted shindig at powerHouse books, and ran into Fiona McCrae and Mary Matze of Graywolf Press on the way. Then Fiona ran into her pals Honor Moore and Loverboy author Victoria Redel, whose new novel is The Border of Truth while we were looking for the party. They warned us the door was a mob scene and advised us to just cut the line. Good advice. Once inside, it was half-hipster, half-publishing types and I enjoyed watching both sides eye each other warily. Luckily no one broke into song and I didn't have to worry about not being a Shark OR a Jet (Please; I'm an Emerald. Nice space, though, and free booze. A winner! After that I breezed around the corner for the mouth-wateringly most-anticipated soiree of my weekend, the Lee Bros'  celebration for their James Beard Award-winning cookbook, featuring "stories and recipes for Southerners and Would-be Southerners." And fried chicken so delicious I nearly lost my mind.

Saturday night, I went by that quintessential New York literary landmark, The Strand, for the store's 80th birthday party. It was mobbed in the best way and beautifully catered. Several champagne toasts, a slice of perfectly frosted cake and an Art Spiegelman-designed tote bag later, I was out the door and on my way home, officially finished with this year's pared-back party agenda and glad I'd confined it to the essentials. And weren't they, though? I love books.

Lauren Cerand writes about art, politics and style at LuxLotus.com.