The Amphibium, pt. 12
The Return of the Amphibium (?)
I started this newsletter a little over a year ago with the stated aim of creating an outlet to share some of my own work and talk about other work I was enjoying. I also had an unstated aim: to help promote my new novel, The Index of Self-Destructive Acts. The idea was that, if I started writing well in advance of the novel's publication date, I could build up a decent audience by the time the book came out, and that this audience would have a certain amount of good will toward me, on the basis of my having provided some free entertainment before I went into selling mode.
In part, this has been a great success: a fair number of people have subscribed to this newsletter over the past year, almost everyone who first signed on has stayed subscribed, and I have heard from many of you who enjoy reading my random thoughts. In another sense, it has been an abject failure: for various reason, most of them good--big new job, growing family, other writing gigs--I let this newsletter go defunct some months ago, well before the publication of the novel it was created to support.
As of today, it is a month until that novel comes out. You may have heard that it is a less than ideal time to be putting out a book. Of course, the fate of one literary novel is the last thing the world needs to worry about right now, but it's not the last thing I'm worried about. And so I am resurrecting this newsletter in the hopes that it may advance its initial (unstated) goal. I will say upfront that for the time being I will be using this space almost exclusively for news on the book, and that I will not take offense if anyone wants to get off the train.
All that said, a few items:
1) I've gotten a couple of pre-publication reviews, which have been very good.
In a "starred" review, Kirkus calls Index "an admirably big-picture, multivalent family saga."
Publishers Weekly calls it a "gripping family saga" that "should do much to expand Beha’s audience." (Obviously they have not gotten the memo about my hundreds of newsletter subscribers.)
2) We scheduled various exciting events for the book's launch, the status of which is very much up in the air for obvious reasons. At least some of them will probably be made "virtual." If and when I have news on this front, I will send it along.
3) There are a few different ways to buy the book while maintaining proper social distance, but one that I am especially excited about is a new website called Bookshop, which lets you buy books from local independent bookstores online. These indies have been incredible supporters of my work, and they desperately need our help right now, so I encourage all of you to buy lots of books--not just mine!--through this site.
4) Lastly: I know that this is an odd time for me to pop back into your in-boxes, asking for attention. For many of us, this has been a period of great inconvenience; for others, one of real anxiety and precariousness; and for more than a few, one of wrenching, life-altering tragedy. Throughout my own life, literature has been one of my main sources of support during such times. (It has also been a source of entertainment during times of boredom and restlessness, which this time is even for those of us who have been only mildly affected.)
I spent many years on this book, and my hope was that it would last beyond the season it happened to appear in hardcover. If now is not a time when you feel equipped to read a long literary novel, it will still be around whenever that time comes. But if you, like me, are the kind of person for whom literature becomes only more important during life's most challenging moments, I hope you'll give this book a try now, and that it might offer some solace and nourishment.