Generally Horrible Questions: Katie Adams

The giant beer is a dead giveaway that this woman
is an editor....

I met Katie a few years ago, when Other Press became a distribution client for Random House (which means that the RH sales force handles the rep duties and our warehouse ships the books) and Katie attended sales conference.  I find the Other Press list of titles and staff invigorating--new voices, fresh perspectives, and a lot of energy make them a joy to represent.  Katie is one of those people who starts talking about the book she's working on and her enthusiasm is contagious; because of this infectious joy I'm willing to overlook that she roots for the Red Sox and has never made me brownies.  She doesn't know that she's supposed to make me brownies, mind you, but why should I have to state my needs so explicitly?  She reads this blog (She's our fan! Possibly the only one remaining!).  She knows I'm not right in the head.  Anyway, in the last year Katie left Other Press to accept a job with Liveright, a newly re-formed division of Norton, but in spite of her abandonment she was still good enough to answer our horrible questions.  She's our first editor....she might have been drunk when she agreed.

Generally Horrible Questions: Katie Adams

1. How’d you become an editor? Tell us your life story.
The long story is a boring one: lifelong reader, naturally bossy, etc. But the crucial lucky break came when I was a senior at Columbia. I was taking a graduate seminar on Dickens, and one of the grad students asked me about my plans after graduation. I murmured vague thoughts about publishing, and she said, “Oh, I used to be an editorial assistant at FSG, give them my name and get an internship there during your final semester.” At the time I’d never even heard of FSG (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, one of the absolute best houses in the business, as I quickly learned), but after a few days of typing out permissions forms for Robert Lowell poems and photocopying Michael Cunningham’s new novel, I was hooked. [For those keeping track, Katie has mentioned Columbia University, graduate seminars, Dickens, FSG, and Robert Lowell.  We love a woman who embraces her nerdiness so openly.]

What book do you point to with pride and think “I worked on that?”
Well, I’ve been so lucky – I’m proud of all the books I’ve had a hand in, whether as an editorial assistant, desk editor, or acquiring editor. But my first real pinch-me moment was probably when Claire Messud wrote a glowing full-page of Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, my first acquisition, in the New York Times. An intellectual endorsement from Messud (a genius) about a book on Virginia Woolf (possibly the greatest English writer since Shakespeare): “an absorbing and complex portrait of Woolf’s particular relation to domestics and domesticity.” Heaven. [Here's the problem--there's too much we like about this statement to mock it.  Virginia Woolf?  LOVE.  Claire Messud?  LOVE (and she has a new novel coming next spring!).  Katie's really short.  We're also starting a rumor that she has six toes on her left foot.  Spread the word.]

What are the best and worst moments in your editorial career?
The absolute worst (so far) was probably when I was an editorial assistant. I sent a deal memo, which contains all of the nitty gritty – and might I add, confidential – details about an author’s book deal, to the wrong person. I meant to send it to the foreign publisher with whom we’d done the deal, but instead I sent it to a fierce literary agent with the same first name, who must have thought she could do even better by the author, because she later picked him up as a client! That was a lay-face-down-on-the-office-floor moment. But really one of the hardest parts of the job is the books that get away, for whatever reason, and then it’s death by a thousand cuts as they come out to rave reviews. ["The books that get away"--is this code for Fifty Shades of Grey?]

Bests, I’ve had a few. Michael Crummey is one of my favorite authors, and when I found out that he hadn’t read Moby Dick (the horror – his latest book features a whale for God’s sake!) I immediately rushed him a copy. Not only did he love it, he wrote a beautiful essay  about reading it. I felt I’d given a little something back to him after his book had given me so much. But there are smaller moments as well. Just last week an author from my last job emailed to say that his daughter had been accepted to her first choice college. I love these personal tidbits I get as the relationship deepens, and I was so thrilled for this proud papa. [Zorro pooped in his litter box for the first time in four years last week!  Send me brownies!]

Any author gossip that you’re willing to reveal? Don’t worry—no one reads this blog.
Ha! If there’s one thing I know about authors, it’s that they find any and every mention of themselves online. [Exactly!  We need the hits from people other than the ones searching Google for free porn!  Tell tales!  Make stuff up.  We certainly do.  Gianna and E.L. James are the same person.]

As a Red Sox fan, describe in detail how much you hate the Yankees. Feel free to rationalize the designated hitter rule for us too; we’re National League fans.
The Yankees are the guy at the bar who hits on you so loudly and so publicly that you can’t tell if he’s actually serious. His ego is performance art. Depending on your answer, he’ll either perform the swaggering jerk that gets the girl, or he’ll perform the impervious couldn’t-care-less reject, but regardless it will be ALL ABOUT HIM. That’s the Yankees. [We were just going to say that they're assholes.]

As an impartial sports fan of New England descent, Astros or Cubs?
I used to empathize with the Cubs, but now I’m kinda mad at Theo Epstein [former Red Sox GM who is now the Cubs GM], plus the Astros no longer suffer under the curse of Roger Clemens, so…Astros. [And Liz's love for Katie lives on....]

What book(s) made you squeal with delight and led you into the dark world of publishing?

The true first would have to be Mickey Mouse’s Picnic, which my sainted mother read to me thousands upon thousands of times. Then it’s a straight line through Where the Red Fern Grows, Mrs. Mike, The Thorn Birds, Persuasion, To the Lighthouse, Bartleby the Scrivener, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Hours, Olive Kitteridge. Or so I say today. [First, Mickey Mouse is the evil overlord that has oppressed the maligned Donald Duck for decades.  Liz is quite serious about this topic.  Curse you for your duck bigotry.  The other books on your list, though, make us happy.]

What are you working on now that has you excited?
Oh so much good stuff. There’s a work of history called For Adam’s Sake, slated for next spring, which reads like Downton Abbey set in 17th century Connecticut. There’s a beautiful, crushing memoir coming next April called My Foreign Cities, about a young couple who, due to illness, have to live their whole marriage in the ten years they know they’ll have together. And a truly fabulous novel called The Last Summer of the Camperdowns about a young girl, a long summer, and a big secret. [Spoiler: she has cooties?] It’s the perfect summer book: “That dear old house. If there is a heaven, I will spend eternity on the back porch, sipping ice tea and eating radish and mayonnaise sandwiches, listening to the birds chirp, watching the mulberries ripen, hearing the waves roll in, reading Sun Tzu when my father is looking; Trixie Belden when he isn’t.” I have the best job in the world. [And cooties.]

You’re married to an editor. Tell the truth: are you better?
It really depends on what you mean by better. I’m definitely more emotional/obsessive about work (and everything), which can drive my authors crazy or make them feel like centers of the universe. But my brilliant husband is utterly unflappable, a crucial piece of the job for which I’m still searching. Also, when we took a sample Wonderlic test (given to college athletes to determine intelligence before they turn pro) my husband scored higher. And he’s also taller. I appreciate this question because it gets at the goal of marriage, which is to determine a winner and a loser. [Exactly.  We're sure you're aware that the Liz and Gianna battle for supremacy rages on.]

Liz or Gianna?
Liz picked Galore as her favorite book of 2011. For that, Liz would also win against either or both of my parents. [Excellent.  And the answer, of course, is always Liz.]

Gilda?  She's a bitch.  How could one NOT choose Zorro?

Liz’s cat Zorro or Gianna’s dog Gilda?
Gilda! Cats are too judgmental. [...You're dead to me (liz).  Unless you send brownies.]

What are your biggest grammatical pet peeves? And what’s your position on the Oxford comma?
Your/you’re. Its/it’s. Two complete sentences joined by “and” but no punctuation. YES to the Oxford comma. Long may it reign. It’s one thing to cast aside these rules in an email, but in your manuscript…for heaven’s sake! [Most of our emails disregard all punctuation and are typed as abbreviations...like "TWSS" for "That's what she said.  Most of our email correspondence is a violation of multiple codes of conduct.  Or involves poop.]

Will you edit Liz and Gianna: A Joint Memoir? We guarantee nudity and violence.

Liveright published this book.
I think it's about a dump
or something.

Only if the book jacket can look like the movie posters for Face/Off. [Absolutely!  GIANNA IS JUST LIKE JOHN TRAVOLTA...or rather, just like his masseur.  She confessed that if Travolta offered her $400, she'd make him a regular client.  She's classy like that.  Also the Face/Off cover would be ideal since we look so much alike.]

Tell us about Liveright, the new line at Norton.
Liveright is the rebirth of one of the great names in publishing. Boni & Liveright (later just Liveright) had a remarkable heyday in the 1920s and 30s. Led by boozy, chorus-girl chasing, literary savant-whisperer Horace Liveright, they published a remarkable array of stars including T.S. Eliot, Anita Loos, Theodore Dreiser, Dorothy Parker, Hart Crane, early Hemingway, early Faulkner etc etc etc. W.W. Norton bought it decades ago and decided to re-launch it this year in order to bring back some of the Liveright classics (books like My Life by Isadora Duncan and The Theater of E.E. Cummings) and to recognize and further draw upon the talents of my amazing boss – a legend in his own right – Bob Weil. [With the Liz and Gianna memoir on the list, you'll be legendary yourself.  What is the record for fastest career-ender for an editor?  Judith Regan with the OJ Simpson book?  We can top that. Gianna's even a boozy, chorus girl.]

Thanks Katie!

(By the way--the best thing about harassing an editor?  All of her answers were spelled properly.  Gianna would never send in a blog post with such polish.)

30 More Days Book Challenge: Day 27

Time to go to the movies.  After all, it's Labor Day.

Day 27: Favorite Book-to-Movie Adaptations

Gianna:

I hate to start this blog off with a devastating story, but it's topical.  Colleen Devine Ellis is a main character in this story and as you may know, those are always worth telling.  About six or so years ago, my house was burgled. Those sons a bitches took all of my DVDs, half of my CD collection (I will never alphabetize again, they took A-M), speakers, cameras--you know, the works. They also got into Colleen’s room and took some CDs and movies, even sort of ransacked her room.  [The way I heard the story, Colleen's room may actually have been straightened a bit by the thieves.] That wasn’t really the hard part for Colleen. What was really hard to process for poor old Devine was the fact that those bastards had the nerve to leave behind the BBC mini series of Pride and Prejudice. Her comment was (oh and I remember it clearly), “ Why would they leave this? Do you know how much I paid for this? This is the one with Colin Firth!” She was really pissed off. She printed out the cover of the DVD set and put it on our front door with a sign that said “Dear robbers, This is all we have left.”

We haven’t been burgled since.

 I pretty much have The Color Purple memorized…i'ts not annoying to watch that movie with me, not at all. Now having said that, I wouldn’t put this movie on my top 20 (or more) at all. It's not as bad as, say (oh, I hope I don’t open a can of worms here…), Girl Interrupted. Loved the book – truly hated the movie.

Pretty much any movie made from a E M Forster book has been good--magic touch, I guess.  Stephen King novels have been turned into some excellent films (some of which are also quote worthy… “You're just another lying ol' dirty birdy”), as were Affliction and The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks. Love those two. My mother accidentally took me to see Barry Lyndon when I was … well, too young; I think we left early (like just four hours in…).

Anyway, I think I will list my top five book-to-movie faves. Note – I did not put any film on the list in which I have not read the book. For example, The Wizard of Oz, Princess Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ( the original, Willy Wonka) , Drugstore Cowboy, In the Name of the Father, Year of Living Dangerously and  Full Metal Jacket – I love all these films but never did read the books.

Also did not list anything that had a book post film… in other words, my beloved Harold and Maude is not on this list.

I also did not include short stories that were made into films. For example, three of may favorite films are Brokeback Mountain (really excellent Annie Proulx story), In the Bedroom by Andre Dubus (great story and great film), and of course the beautiful story The Bear Came Over the Mountain by Alice Munro, which was made into a gorgeous film by Sarah Polley called Away from Her. [I love all of these stories and movies.]

And still, getting all that our of the way…the list was difficult to make:

Terms of Endearment

Larry McMurtry – Novel

James L Brooks – Screenplay and Director

I actually love this film more than the book…by a long shot.  This is one of those movies that I will always top on if its on television. I just can’t pass it up. [I agree; the movie is significantly different, and significantly better.  Can't beat Shirley MacLaine in the role of Aurora.]

“It's past ten. My daughter is in pain. I don't understand why she has to have this pain. All she has to do is hold out until ten, and it’s past ten! My daughter is in pain, can't you understand that! Give my daughter the shot!”

 Silence of the Lambs

Thomas Harris – Novel

Ted Tally - Screenplay

Jonathan Demme – Director

 I read three Harris novels after seeing this film; Red Dragon (my favorite of his), Silence,and Hannibal.  The films sequels got bad quickly, didn’t they?

“You know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. A well scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Good nutrition's given you some length of bone, but you're not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? And that accent you've tried so desperately to shed: pure West Virginia. What is your father, dear? Is he a coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know how quickly the boys found you... all those tedious sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars... while you could only dream of getting out... getting anywhere... getting all the way to the FBI.”

No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy – Novel

Joel and Ethan Coen –  Screenplay and Directors

 I was pretty shocked when I read this book – and I am pretty sure I sat stunned watching this really excellent film as well.  This is one of those films you just can’t shake. It's also one of those films where you really don’t want to walk to your car alone in the theatre parking lot… yeah, I made the mistake of seeing this alone.

“Whatcha got ain't nothin new. This country's hard on people, you can't stop what's coming, it ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity.”

Sense & Sensibility

Jane Austen – Novel

Emma Thompson – Screenplay

Ang Lee – Director

 

First of all…I love Jane Austen.  [That makes one of us.  I do like this version of the novel as a film, though.] I think Emma Thompson’s adaptation is phenomenal – it  really has everything.  And yes, Colleen, I would put it up against your precious Pride and Prejudice. While it doesn’t have Colin Firth, it does have Alan Rickman.  And, you know, nothing wrong with Emma and Kate either. Emma Thompson kept a journal during the making of the film; I HIGHLY recommend it.  Sense and Sensibility: The Screenplay and Diaries.

The Godfather

Mario Puzo – Novel

Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola – Screenplay

Francis Ford Coppola - Director

This is it for me. You can have your Goodfellas…I will always choose The Godfather (I and II I pretend III never happened).  One Saturday morning a few weeks ago I turned on the television to watch the news … I left the sofa about five hours later after watching both Godfather I and II, which some fantastic network was showing back to back the way God intended.  I read the book after seeing the movie by the way. Movie is much better.

Okay here it is…..

“Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”

Liz:

I feel some pressure in compiling my list.  I think Gianna's is superb and I easily could have chosen any one of those books-to-films for my own list.  I have Terms of Endearment memorized; I've seen it so many times that I could tell you the name of the classical music piece playing on John Lithgow's radio when he runs into Emma (Debra Winger) in the parking lot.  I'm going to attempt to come up with five picks of my own, though.  There are lots to choose from, after all.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Stieg Larsson--Novel

Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg--Screenplay

Niels Arden Oplev--Director

I know that the American version of this book-to-movie adaptation will be the blockbuster movie of the fall, but I don't know how director David Fincher could possibly improve on the excellent Swedish version.  Neither book nor movie are for the faint of heart, but this movie is one of the most faithful adaptations I've ever seen and Noomi Rapace, the actor who played Lisbeth Salander, SHOULD have one an Oscar for her portrayal.  She's simply brilliant--both fragile and tougher than any other character in the movie, and so terribly, understandably damaged.  I love this character, and I love the screen version of this character.

Speak

Laurie Halse Anderson--Novel

Jessica Sharzer--Screenplay, Director

I don't even know if this movie was ever in the theater.  I stumbled across it one weekend afternoon when I was flipping channels and it looked like the better alternative to reruns of Fear Factor.  I think maybe it was on Showtime or something?  Anyway, I was surprised by how much I liked this movie.  Kristen Stewart, who decided to ruin her career with a few Twilight movies, is subtle and moving in the role of Melinda, a girl struggling through her first year of high school after being raped at a party at the beginning of the year.  (For the record, this movie is based on a young adult book, which I have actually read.  I am a snob most of the time about adults reading adult books, but I made an exception for this one after seeing the movie.)

"My English teacher has no face.  I call her Hairwoman."

The Hours

Michael Cunningham--Novel

David Hare--Screenplay

Stephen Daldry--Director

Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel should have been one of those books that it's impossible to adapt, but the film version proved outstanding.  Nicole Kidman is great at Virginia Woolf, and Julianne Moore is even better as a depressed, 1950's housewife.  There is one scene in the movie that differs wildly from the book, but otherwise it's a strong adaptation that should have won the Best Picture Oscar.  Oh, and it has a Phillip Glass soundtrack.  I love Glass.

"Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours."

Atonement

Ian McEwan--Novel

Christopher Hampton--Screenplay

Joe Wright--Director

This story of innocence lost and the misinterpretation of childrens' eyes weaves together a tense night at an English manor with the horror of the war.  Briony is a 13 year-old girl who wants to be a writer, and one day  she observes an incident between her older sister and the son of a servant.  That night, when another girl is attacked at a party, Robbie, the servant's son, is accused of rape based on Briony's testimony.  Robbie and Cecilia's relationship then becomes the focus as Robbie is sent to war.

"Yes. I saw him. I saw him with my own eyes."

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee--Novel

Horton Foote--Screenplay

Robert Mulligan--Director

Does this pick need explanation?  One of the best books ever, and one of the best movies.  The screenplay is by Horton Foote, for cryin' out loud.  Horton Foote, who wrote A Trip to Bountiful and Tender Mercies.  There's a reason that schools watch the movie along with reading the book, and I don't think it's entirely because the teachers are lazy.  Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch--who didn't want him as your father?

"Neighbors bring food with death, and flowers with sickness, and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a knife, and our lives."

30 More Days Book Challenge: Day 4

You know what's fun?  Seeing what sort of random key words on the Google lead people to this delightful little blog.  You might think that, being mostly based on books, this blog is visited by a modern intelligentsia of bookish folk.  You would be wrong.  Yesterday, for example, Googlers found us with key word searches like "liz poo poo blog hot adventures" and "God's little designer blog by Gianna."  I'm not making these up.

Staying classy, here's Day 4: Favorite Award Winners

Gianna:

I don’t know what is worse, looking at lists like this and seeing how few you’ve read or how few you’ve liked. What makes me more of an idiot? [...No comment.] In any case, here are some of my favorite winners and my top dog for fiction and non-fiction.


Pulitzer

Some of my favorite titles include The Road, Interpreter of Maladies, The Hours, To Kill a Mockingbird, Middlesex, The Known World, The Looming Tower, and The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

But my favorite non-fiction Pulitzer winner is A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power (2003). Power argues that American policy makers have been consistently slow to condemn mass atrocities or even name them as genocide (they avoid the term genocide at all costs). It is a stomach-churning but eye-opening read.

My favorite fiction winner is no less stomach-churning: Beloved by Toni Morrison. I wrote about this book not too long ago as the book I read the most number of times. It’s a difficult read for several reasons, but it’s worth the trip. “Sixty Million and More” TM

National Book Award

Some NBA favorites include Invisible Man, Life of Emily Dickinson, Sophie’s Choice, The Color Purple, White Noise, All the Pretty Horses, Waiting, Slaves in the Family, An American Requiem, Middle Passage, Them by Joyce Carol Oates, and a book I just love, Going after Cacciato by Tim O’Brien.

My favorite winner– again not a surprise--is The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor (1972). What I love about O’Connor (besides being easy on the eyes) is you can read her again and again and find new things to love. She never gets old to me. When I am in a reading rut – this is my go to book.

Liz:

Pulitzer

I've read a lot of these winners, and enjoyed even more of the Pulitzer finalists for each year.  From the winners list, though, two novels jump out at me: The Hours by Michael Cunningham and The Shipping News by Annie Proulx.  One novel is framed around the life of one of my favorite authors and my favorite novel by that author (Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway), and the other is set in my country crush, Canada.  Both deal with family discord and coming to terms with tragedy and the errors made in the past by family.  Both contain characters involved with writing.  Both novels are the defining works by their authors.  These are books that, given the time, I would reread in the hope that their magic lingers for multiple trips through their pages.

National Book Award

A true dark horse (pun intended) winner of the NBA, last year's winner Lord of Misrule is OUTSTANDING.  I was late in reading this novel about a down-on-its-luck horse track in West Virginia because I had to read a bunch of books for work and the hardcover publisher wasn't a Random House entity.  Luckily for me, Vintage, one of the paperback lines for RH, snagged the paperback rights and I had an excuse to dip into Jaimy Gordon's terrific book under the guise of sales research.  Have I mentioned that it's a great book?  Lord of Misrule is the name of a horse, once a champion but crippled and semi-retired.  Like the horse, the track and individuals working the stables have seen better days.  With one last race, the horse and the people of the track hope for one more moment of glory. 

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 11

Day 11: A Book by Your Favorite Author

Gianna:

 

The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor

  

It's important to know who your friends are. It's also important to know who your friends may not be before you even bother to try. So if someone says, "Oh, I don't like short stories," I think, "Well maybe they just haven't read a good one...or are even embarrassed to say they haven't read any." Now if someone says "I don't like Flannery O'Connor," I know right off that I won't be friends with that person. Lovers? Yeah, probably. But we will not be friends. I have pretty high standards (very low morals). This concludes my lesson in pre-judging people and before you ask...yes it's worked pretty well for me. I have two friends.[I'm her friend!  Not her lover.  I actually have a similar book/friend test, but it's a negative correlation: my close friends are the ones who loathe Confederacy of Dunces.  Unlike Gianna, though, I won't be sleeping with Dunce lovers either.  And yes, I'm still single.]

Liz

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Yeah, I'm one of those people.  I'm fascinated by her life, and I love her writing, and she's one of the few authors I'll reread.  I know there are better reviewed, more academically revered works by Woolf, but Mrs. Dalloway is the book that sings to me, and it's the basis for one of my other favorite books, Michael Cunningham's The Hours.  Hell, I even like the movie version of Mrs. Dalloway.  There's a strong chance that I'll some day have a cat named either Clarissa or Septimus.  If I won the lottery, the first thing I'd do is purchase a signed first edition of Mrs. Dalloway.  As for Virginia Woolf, I admire her talent and her courage.  And she signed books with a purple-inked pen.  I love the purple.