UK Pub Day and Those Post-Pub Feels
On the gorgeous new UK edition, postpartum art blues, and the evolving 'what is.'
Hello, friends! Before I get into anything else, I must take this opportunity to share [drumroll, plz] that Fruit of the Dead comes out today in the UK!
I received a few copies by mail last week and I have to say, as beautiful as the design appears in two dimensions, she’s really stunning in three. The gorgeous 70s typeface! The shine on that flat red pill! The leering horse! If you don’t already have a copy of the US edition, and/or you just want one of these British beauts, I’d urge you to track down one of these, e.g. at bookshop.org, Waterstones, the bad place (UK), or at any independent bookstore in the UK.
Meanwhile, my experience since publication here in the US has been a whirlwind, a rollercoaster, a choose-your-own-metaphor to convey, you know, like, a hair-raising, belly-twisting, breath-losing physical experience. There is a certain ambivalence to publishing. On the one hand, on the occasion of my publication and little book tour, I connected—have continued connecting with—a few writers I admire and adore. I received a few kind write-ups and reviews, and have gotten many sweet messages from friends, colleagues, and booksellers who read and loved the book. (If one of these was you, thank you, thank you, from the very sub-basement of my heart. I cannot tell you what a gift it was to hear from you.) All of this has been very real and deeply valuable to me. I don’t take any of it for granted.
On the other hand, it has been difficult. For one thing, inevitably—for me, at least—releasing a work of art into the world, particularly one that’s been long in the making, tends to be followed by a feeling of deflation, a kind of postpartum blues (though you know I hate the phrase “book baby”), a sense of loss. The work is done, but life, inevitably, goes on, and the artist has no choice but to reorient. For the artist, for a very long time—for several years!—everything has been all about the book, but the book means more than just a collection of, approximately, 90,000 words. The book refers, too, to the story within that object, and to the many stories that surround it: the stories one tells oneself—about one’s own anticipation, anxieties, dreams, fears, and self-definition, about career opportunities and travel and conversations with idols, and more, and more—and the many, often conflicting stories that others tell, from blurbers and publicists to booksellers, from friends to strangers to Goodreads haters. When the book “drops,” it thuds, an object after all, one of dozens if not hundreds of $28 hardcovers now available in a chain store near you.
What I’m saying is, ironically, though publication is often if not always the goal—and though I couldn’t be more happy with or grateful for the two smart, skillful publishers that have ushered my book into the world, on two separate continents, in two gorgeous jackets!—through its alchemy, the book becomes, merely, a book. And that mystical aura of anticipation, of life-changing possibility, of what could be, falls away a little, replaced by what is.
Although. What is is always evolving, both internally and externally. Anyone who’s reread a book knows that books change over time, altered by our own evolving selves. Simultaneously, once in the world, the book enters into infinite conversation with other books it may not have known before. For instance, I’m currently listening to the audiobook edition of Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions For You (read by the immensely talented Julia Whelan, who also did the audiobook for my debut Self-Portrait with Boy, which you can get right here for free!). As I’ve listened to Makkai’s narrator wrestle with some of the same questions that plagued me enough to write Fruit of the Dead, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to think about my own novel through a new lens, retroactively.
In this way, through my awareness of that evolving what is—and through reconnecting with real life, and, joyfully, getting back to work on my next book—that the postpartum art blues is beginning to dissipate. I do have more to say about it. I composed two thousand words on this topic for you, yesterday! But I’m going to put them away, for now. I mean, sheesh, here I am, writing about and thinking about and talking about and obsessing over my own experience, the experience of the author, when what really matters, in these first weeks of the novel’s life in the world, is its readers, is you. The other day, I got a text from a dear, close friend who was 100 pages into the book. She said, “I have this eerie feeling it is written for me.” I hope you’ll forgive me for responding to her here, as if she were you. For saying, now, It is. It is written for you. And for me. But also for you, and you, and you.
In Other News
For LitHub, the wonderful Leslie Jamison and I had a deep and far-ranging conversation about Fruit of the Dead, her newest book, Splinters, motherhood, writing, addiction, and more.
For The Library of America’s “Influences” series, I wrote about my literary influences for Fruit of the Dead, Self-Portrait with Boy, and Unnamed Novel #3.
I’ve had a few other great conversations, lately, including with Christopher Hermelin, on his podcast So Many Damn Books . . .
Happily, Fruit was included in a few fun roundups this month: Oprah Daily’s best new novels to read this spring, Town and Country’s 45 Must-Read Books of Spring, Bustle’s 44 Most Anticipated Books of Spring, and OurCulture’s 10 Books We’re Excited To Read in March 2024.
In event news, I will be at the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge this Friday, 3/29, in conversation with the excellent Elizabeth Gonzalez James.
I’ll be in Brooklyn to read among admired colleagues and friends at Franklin Park on 4/8, then in conversation with brilliant angel Clare Beams about her amazing new novel The Garden at Books Are Magic on 4/10.
More events are listed on my website, should you be curious. Thank you for reading, and more soon,
xo Rachel