Links: Brown Girl Dreaming, Duke’s Wagers, and More

Brown Girl Dreaming
A | K | AB
Yesterday morning, folks on Twitter and elsewhere were discussing Daniel Handler’s racist jokes while hosting the National Book Awards following Jacqueline Woodson’s win in the YA category for Brown Girl Dreaming. 

David Perry posted a transcript and linked to the video clip from the awards ceremony, if you’d like to see it. Handler (who wrote the Series of Unfortunate Events series as Lemony Snicket) “joked” after Woodson’s acceptance speech that he’d learned recently that she was allergic to watermelon, and it went rapidly downhill and beyond unfortunate from there.

Perry wrote,

Handler is a smart guy (I went to college with him, but never really knew him), he knows this history, and he thinks that because of his disclaimer, this is funny.

It’s not. Woodson can make that joke about herself. But for a powerful white author to make a watermelon joke when handing out an award to a black author, the message is – no matter what you write, no matter what you do, no matter what you accomplish, you will always be a BLACK author, not just an author.

That’s not Handler’s intention here, but that’s the effect.

And it needs to be called out. It especially needs to be called out by all those other powerful white male authors that populate the internet, have tens or hundreds of thousands (or millions, for Gaiman, who was doing a book giveaway with Handler earlier in the day) of followers on Twitter.

And then Handler can apologize, say that it wasn’t his intention to be offensive (which is what they always say) and everyone will just move on. But the apology is necessary. It’s necessary to make a loud, public, statement that this type of discourse is unacceptable.

The apology arrived shortly afterward, and Perry posted pictures of Handler’s tweets as well.

The apology continues, and it’s much better than I expected Today, Handler has donated $10,000 to the Indiegogo campaign for We Need Diverse Books, and has pledged to match donations up to an additional $100,000.00 for the next 24 hours. (I’m so in on this, and so are many others in my Tweet stream).

Yesterday, I also bought four copies of Woodson’s book for my sons’ elementary school. Unless there’s been a re-hiring I don’t know about, our schools do not have librarians due to budget problems years ago. This is true of many schools, unfortunately. We’re fortunate in a lot of ways, not the least of which are the incredibly wonderful, diverse and excellently curated classroom libraries developed by the teachers, but it’s still not sufficient.

When I contacted the principal, she told me that the 5th graders do a long curriculum unit on poetry, and that Woodson’s book would be very, very welcome in those classroom libraries as well as in the school’s library. Brown Girl Dreaming is poetry about Woodson’s life growing up in South Carolina and New York, and is meant for grades 5 and up, or ages 10+.

Major congrats to Jacqueline Woodson for her National Book Award, and to the other winners as well.

If you’ve heard me tell the origin story of Smart Bitches, you know that I used to have an online journal in the late 90s. Online Journals predated blogging by a little bit and were pretty much as pretentious as they sound. One of the online journals I followed that was consistently funny and not at all pretentious was Squishy, by Pamela Ribon. Ribon is now a bestselling author and television & film writer, and her writing is still awesome.

So when I saw this long photographed account of how a Barbie computer programming story was so awful, I thought, “This person’s writing sounds familiar.” And of course it was Pam Ribon.

Y’all. This book is so awful. Have a look. It’s incredible.

And get this – when I went to link to it, the book appears to be no longer for sale.

Well, that’s a probably a good thing. 0_o

The heroine looks like Liz Taylor with this big ol bouffant hair, and the hero has a chin for miles but the best is that it says COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED riiiight over his crotch.Margaret forwarded me the following link, and it is ALL THE EYE CANDY YOU GUYS SERIOUSLY: Jane Austen’s fashion history: 200 years of cover designs – in pictures.

I nearly choked on my beverage at the Northanger Abbey cover:

The cover of this paperback works fine as a generic Regency-era illustration, but not so well when applied to Northanger Abbey.

The gentleman seems too brooding to be Henry Tilney, Austen’s most lighthearted hero, and Catherine Morland seems rather older than 17, her age in the novel. However, both were no doubt gladdened by the positioning of the words “Complete and Unabridged”.

Awwww, yeah, complete AND unabridged. (It does beg the question – were there Bonus Materials as well?!?!!?)

This message is from Jessica Spears, who is a graduate student working on a thesis project about romance covers:

I am a masters student in art history at Hunter College in New York. I am hoping to do my final thesis on romance novel cover art. Except for your excellent and very funny book, not much is written about the reader’s feelings about covers. 

Would you be willing to post a short survey about what romance readers think of cover art? (I hate long surveys).

Short survey about cover art? Sure. Here’s a link if you’re so inclined. Good luck, Jessica!

And finally – GUESS WHAT. Remember when we discussed Regency covers for reissued classic Regencies, like the late Edith Layton’s backlist, which is being digitized by her family?

Layton’s daughter Susie Felber sent me news and links: The Duke’s Wager is now available for preorder ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), and will be released December 11.

You may ask yourself, “How did I get here?” You may ask yourself, “How do I work this?”
And you may ask yourself, “Where is that large automobile?”

And you may be asking, “Holy crap, why is the digital version $5.99?”

These are all valid questions. I asked Susie about the price (and I also heard RUMORS of SALES for something like BLACK FRIDAY or HOLIDAY SHOPPING or SOMETHING ELSE LIKE TALKING HEADS DAY OR WHATEVER) and she told me that Untreed Reads, when they digitize a book by scanning the paper copy, hires a copy editor for each book to make sure there aren’t any pesky and utterly bothersome OCR scanning errors.

Because remember, if the text is old, the OCR scanner may change “arms” to “anus” and NO ONE WANTS THAT.

So because they go over each digitized book so closely (I presume with both arms), the price is higher. Susie tells me:

I took reader comments most seriously, but I have my own biases and was glad to see some of the comments on SB and LITM backed them all up to varying degrees.

The SB and LITM readers had AMAZING comments and I loved them all.  OMG the ladies, some of whom are authors and journos I love, were kind but feisty and didn’t hold back. I literally cried tears of happiness.  I was probs hormonal, but still.  Sadly, even though there were great opinions, not everyone agrees; in fact, they often totally disagree.

My biases:

I am sick of/freaked out by headless ladies. Some great covers have the headless, and sometimes it’s the best solution with stock but…

I know the Regency fans especially don’t like mega sexy covers when the books aren’t “inch by inch” novels, as my mother called them.

I know Regency fans hate fashions that are totally out of period.

I love the fashion plate covers, but feel they need a really talented designer to make them look appealing to readers outside the genre, who I’d hope to bring in.

Ever since I was a little girl going to RT conventions with my mom, and coming away with bags of full of free romances, if the heroine’s hair color on the cover wasn’t close to the story, it drove me nuts. I don’t know why it made me insane, but it still does. And FYI, when I was little, I LOVED the “inch by inch” novels I scooped up at RT conventions and kept piles of them under my antique brass bed.

MOST IMPORTANT
When you see the Duke’s Wager cover, even with the above caveats, you are not seeing all the rounds it went through.  Untreed Reads was really great about addressing nearly all my bitchy comments.  I was a writer for US Weekly’s Fashion Police for over 6 years.  I can not hold back.

Some previous versions included:

Headless lady!

Too sexy lady!

Lady in a 90’s prom dress!

A blonde heroine (wrong color for Regina, no way) who also looked stoned and stuffed.

The people turned green with an overlay!

IN CONCLUSION

The current cover: I’m proud of it. I think it’s sexy, yet sweet. The hero and heroine might not have the right hairdo, but heck, maybe it’s an intimate moment. The hero is too beefy for my taste, but hey, when I can afford to pay Rufus Sewell to model, I will. And when I can afford to have Rufus Sewell be my personal butler, I will.  In short, I think my mom would’ve liked the cover. It drives me nuts she can’t weigh in, but she was far less concerned with covers. She was, thankfully, all about the writing. And mom also had naturally curly red hair (before she started dying it to retain, even) so I like that.

Ready to see the cover?

Book The Duke's Wager - a guy in a leather vest and long hair touching the neck of a woman with long red hair in a green flowered dress, one that looks plain compared to his clothing

I admit, I’m still not a fan of the photograph covers, and that’s not how I pictured Torquay in my mind, but setting aside all that, I am so excited that this book is finally, finally digitally available, I’d have been fine with a green landscape and a pair of gloves. The gloves don’t even have to match.

What’s your opinion?

And what have you read online this week that was interesting? Anything to share?

Comments are Closed

  1. Pangolin says:

    That cover is selling it for me. Sweet yet hot. Now to await the digital release…

  2. Vicki says:

    Excellent remix!

  3. Sel says:

    Something about the shine on her cheek is making my brain sing “THE PHAAAAAAAAANTOM OF THE OPERA IS THEEEEEERE…INSIIIIDE MY BOOKCOVER!”

    The cover doesn’t do it for me. (Um, they just happened to find themselves in an intimate moment in a grey-coloured lightbox? What’s with his 90s grunge hairdo? Why is she standing there like she’s fallen asleep while he’s touching her?)

    But on the strength of recs from the Bitchery, I’d be happy to read this nevertheless. 🙂

  4. Stephanie Scott says:

    Wow, I’m really glad Handler is doing that much to make up for his comments. There really were in far poorer taste than a blunder.

    And very cool that you donated Woodson’s book to the school. A good friend of mine has been teaching for 10+ years. She is dying to get into a school librarian position, but in her area, the jobs are so scarce you pretty much have to know who’s retiring to get in to what’s left. A sad reality.

  5. Cecilia says:

    I am not American and I don’t closely follow discussions about racism in the USA. Could someone please explain me why mentioning the watermelon was so offensive? I have read the transcript, but I don’t understand. I get that it was bad taste to joke during the award, but then the joke is on Handler. I’m missing something.

  6. Cecilia says:

    @ms bookjunkie:

    Thanks you so much! I had no idea of this stereotypical use of watermelons. I knew I was missing something in this episode.

  7. Julie says:

    I adore The Duke’s Wager, but this cover is not for that book. I honestly prefer the original cover. I think it is more accurate and compelling: https://www.goodreads.com/book/photo/2785752-the-duke-s-wager .

  8. Heather S says:

    The 200 years of Jane Austen cover designs is part of a book that just came out two weeks ago – “Jane Austen Cover to Cover”. I actually just finished reading/looking through it this morning. It was lovely. ^_^ If you like Jane Austen, books about books, book covers, then this is the book for you.

  9. Danker says:

    The Layton is pre-ordered. It could have a blank cover and I would have made the order.
    That said – the general cover design isn’t too bad. The colour and shading IS a bit off, but the female figure is fine. He isn’t. OK hair for Georgian period, but too Fabio for Regency. And he is too swarthy for my mental image. But, who cares. The energy between them is fine.
    Roll out more ebook versions. The current cost is OK with me and I appreciate Layton’s daughter’s comments.

  10. Danker says:

    Well – now I look again, she is very down-glanced and submissive in stance. I’d prefer her arms and eyes up, but there you go! Nit-picking! I said the cover doesn’t matter and, in the end, it isn’t a deciding factor.

  11. ducky says:

    I prefer the old cover to the new one but I am happy DUKE’S WAGER is getting re-released.

  12. JaniceG says:

    I adored Pamela Ribon’s takedown of the 2010 appallingly sexist Barbie book. You will be pleased to know that the wildfire that ensued across the net caused Mattel to pull the book off Amazon. Even better, the naturalistic Lammily doll that is an answer to Barbie has graduated from a Kickstarter to a reality (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/11/19/normal-barbie-cellulite-stretch-marks-acne-tattoos/19279077/)

  13. Rebecca says:

    Just going on record to say that I am now glad I did not buy any of the Lemony Snicket books. Checked one out of the library on the enthusiastic recommendation of a student. I was glad she was reading it for the sake of her vocabulary, but I thought the wit was a bit labored. Now I’m not surprised why. Money or no I will not be steering students toward his books to students in the future. I don’t want to have to check them in all in advance to make sure there aren’t little brightly painted nuggets of poison in there for students of color.

  14. ohhellsyeah says:

    @cecilia I am also Canadian and while I understood why the jokes was offensive, I probably wouldn’t have a year ago. There is a lot of coded, racist language that probably goes way over the heads of non-Americans. Which is not to say racism doesn’t exist in other places of course.

  15. SB Sarah says:

    I was so surprised that in a matter of days, I couldn’t find the book online. Now it’ll be worth bodrillions used, right?

  16. “Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down… Same as it ever was/same as it ever was/SAME AS IT EVER WAS”

    Very apropos lyrics for all the subjects you touched upon Sarah. I groaned at Daniel Holder’s series of unfortunate utterances but was glad he stepped up to try and make it right. Good for everyone.

    I’m off to lose myself in the regency covers. Happy Sunday to all!

  17. […] Edith Layton’s daughter asked what we thought about covers? SBTB has a follow up on that here. Scroll down toward the bottom of the post. I find the concept of posthumous publishing fascinating […]

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