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In So Many Words

In November we will release Marc Estrin’s third outrageous historicomic novel of ideas, Golem Song. It’s about a paranoid and manic emergency-room nurse who believes himself chosen — though he doesn’t know by Whom — to do battle against the cultural and racist forces that he believes threaten Jewish identity and safety in contemporary New York.

I know. That’s a mouthful.

I’ve always thought my inability to boil our books down to six-word descriptions was just an indication of how rich the books we publish so often are. But clearly it’s nothing other than a liability. I mean, even Publishers Lunch edits down the descriptions in their deal announcements. (Do you get more words if you can report a “nice” deal instead of a “good” deal?)

At the Mountains & Plains booksellers convention last month, a powerful figure in the bookselling world told me that Water for Elephants is enjoying its success for many reasons, the most important of which was that, coming in, it had a great hook. Then he wanted to know what mine was for the novel I was hawking at the time:

“What’s the hook for Hick?” he asked.

I’m afraid that I stumbled for too long before coming up with this: “A 13-year-old girl from Nebraska hits the road late one night believing she needs a sugar daddy and knowing full well that she’s about to make her life go boom.”

Does that work? It’s still a lot of words.

I guess the more complex pitches, like the one I made for Golem Song, don’t work. The New York Times Book Review has passed on the book. So has The Washington Post Book World. Other reviewers are pretty quiet at the moment, too.

It hasn’t seemed to make one bit of difference that the inimitable Martha Nussbaum appears in one chapter (Chapter 13) to debate the teleological suspension of the ethical while being hit on in Union Square by the novel’s less than charming protagonist. Maybe if she was more of a celebrity.

Estrin’s first novel — Insect Dreams: The Half Life of Gregor Samsa — was widely regarded as a landmark, even a masterpiece. Seems that would have warranted subsequent reviews, at least for awhile. But I guess it takes a hook like the man said. And the pitch “Who but Marc Estrin could imagine the line of descent from the Frankensteinian Golem of Rabbi Loew to the outrageous false messiah of the Bronx, Nurse Alan Krieger?” just doesn’t get it done.

I’m just going to have to learn the art. So, Golem Song — uhm — how about, “Ignatius J. Reilly morphs into Eleazar Ben Yair.”

Is that a hook? What do you think?

Fred Ramey

 
 

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