The Elephant's Bookshelf

No two books are alike, and from what I can tell, book launches are often different.

The latest book from Elephant’s Bookshelf Press is unlike anything we’ve ever published before, and so is the launch. Which the Days Never Know: A year in Vietnam by the numbers is the first nonfiction book from EBP.

The name might imply that it’s a memoir, and in a sense that’s correct. But not quite. It contains memories from the author, Dr. Donald McNamara, who walked off his flight home from Vietnam on January 13, 1968; we published the paperback on the fiftieth anniversary of his return home. But the book conveys moments more than memories, impressions rather than intensity.

Which the Days Never Know does not set out to recount battles or delve deeply into personal matters – or even personnel matters. Instead, Don takes the approach of a workaday soldier.

Everything in the Army seemed to have a number, he said, so in his book Don marched through 365 days – the typical one-year term of service in Vietnam – number by number.

From a visual standpoint, he wanted the book to look like verse or poetry.

From a publishing standpoint, I knew right away that we were taking a risk. But I think it’s a risk worth taking.

In launching EBP’s nonfiction division, I wanted something that felt true to what the company has been aiming to accomplish – its mission, if you will. Unlike many EBP authors, Don is not unpublished; he has retired as a professor of literature and during his academic career wrote pieces on Irish language and literature in particular. He also has written countless journalistic pieces, which is how our paths crossed.

But EBP prides itself on helping authors share their voice and helping their stories find an audience.
As a bit of EBP trivia, Don helped me find the voice of my company, years before I knew I become a publisher. He taught me the phrase bionn gach tasu lag, which I used in the first paragraph of the introduction to Spring Fevers, EBP’s first book, back in 2012. For those who do not recall the intro – or might not be fluent in Irish – it means “every beginning is weak.”

And in a mirror image of Spring Fevers, I have decided to publish Which the Days Never Know first in paperback; Spring Fevers was originally planned as an ebook only.

Think of this as a soft launch.

In this age of electronic and independent publishing, we learn to stagger launches every few months – more often, if you’re able to write that quickly – and build up a team of eager early readers. These approaches can work. I haven’t done that with Which the Days Never Know.

As I said above, this is a very different book for EBP -- and for me. I’m not sure he’s aware, but Don has been a helpful mentor to me as I’ve grown as a journalist and author. Many EBP authors are people I’ve met maybe once or twice. Most of them I’ve never even spoken to on the phone. Don and I worked together years ago. We even shared office space.

Without a doubt, I aim to build the audience for Don’s book, but I also want to share with this audience. I want to share the book with readers who might be able to use it best; veterans’ organizations, for example. I suspect the paperback version will be better appreciated for those groups, though I’m sure many of those readers also enjoy building their ebook collections.

In fact, for readers who buy a copy of the paperback, I’ll provide them a free ebook version.

So, if you’d like to get a free copy of the ebook, send an email to matt@elephantsbookshelfpress and we’ll make that happen.

From time to time, I read books that confound me. In my middle-dotage, I've started shoving those books to the side with a phrase along the lines of "There's not enough time in the world to finish tripe like that." Within the first fifty pages of Pete McCarthy's McCarthy's Bar, I found myself wondering what the heck was his point. But I continued. I love Ireland and I'm not averse to drinking. And McCarthy has a way with words and phrases. At that point, I wasn't so sure about his having a way with books, but like I said, I'm not averse to drinking.

Before I'd reached page 100, I had realized it was basically a travelogue. He's driving around Ireland drinking in pubs, visiting stone circles, being accosted by killer cows (ok, not a killer), waxing philosophical and spiritual at times, and sleeping in B&Bs of all sorts. And telling stories about the many, varied people he meets in all these places. I don't really read travelogues too often, but that's fine. I mean, the guy's funny, so why not?

See, this is where I had a problem. McCarthy is funny. I would laugh out loud at times, which can be a little strange when you're sitting among weary commuters heading to or from New York. By page 150 or so, I'd decided that I would finish reading the book even though I was having a hard time justifying it to my inner book-reading snob.

Along the way, I discovered that the book has more going for it than just a travelogue. It really is about learning about your identity. McCarthy's asking, "Where do I belong?" He was born in England, though his family is Irish and he still has cousins and uncles living in Ireland. His accent is English, so there's no BSing about it to the Irish. (He's not visiting the U.S., after all.) And those he meets on his travels include people from Germany, Belgium, Russia... I think there may even have been an Uzbek in there somewhere. And they're becoming Irish — at least their kids are.

So can an English-born guy with Irish roots claim to be Irish? I'll let you read for yourself.

So carry the book with you for a few weeks. I wouldn't recommend you read it all in one sitting, unless you've got a lot of beer and hearty food with you. No, take it with you to a pub, read a few pages over a pint. Mark your place when someone sits down near you and chats (it may help to stop in an Irishy pub; they're everywhere now, which also is a point McCarthy makes), and enjoy the craic.

You may not remember every single person you meet on these pages, but you don't have to. This is one of those books where the journey is far more important than the destination. But when you've reached the last page, you'll realize you've found a nice place for resurrection.

There was a story the other day in the New York Times about a British writer who was not allowed to come into the United States, where he was going to attend an opening party for his new book, Dandy in the Underworld, which is a memoir.

I've not heard of this guy, Sebastian Horsely, before, though I'm not much for memoirs, which seem to have pushed the novel further into the background of the literary world. His work is about his experiences as a drug abuser and frequent user of prostitutes. He chronicles his trips to the Philippines, where a photographer took pictures of him being hung from a cross. (Buy the book, just in time for Easter! Good God, what has this world come to?) Presumably, that's where the image I found online and borrowed for this post came from.

Memoirs and memoirists have had some trouble the past couple of years -- especially in recent weeks -- and I couldn't help but wonder whether, in a way, this decision by the United States is a way to challenge whether Horsely really was telling the truth. What Horsely has that "Margaret Jones" didn't have was indisputable truth that he'd done these things -- at least the mock crucifiction. Jones's tale, while reportedly poignant and stunning, is not her personal experience. Ergo, not memoir. Thank you, try again.

Personally, I have no trouble with fiction. I love reading it and writing it. I believe most readers who say they prefer nonfiction because they want to read about what is real are simply lazy. They literally have not exercised their imagination. Shame on them. A good story -- especially fiction -- should feel real to a reader, otherwise there is no believability and ultimately the work will wither and die on the vine.

I'd like to believe that Margaret Jones, whose real name is Margaret Seltzer, could simply have converted the story to fiction. As the New York Times blog post suggests, that's not always easy. But at least it's honest.

As for Mr. Horsely, well, if I read the article correctly it said that he was trying to get into the United States without a visa -- which, reportedly, is still possible for British folks, as long as they haven't been convicted of a crime involving moral terpitude. Perhaps I'm reading it wrong. I'd have expected his publisher or agent to have checked into securing a visa, but the article is silent on that point.

I doubt I'll be reading about the book about the dandy. I can't relate to drug abuse and using prostitutes, and I don't care to live vicariously through him. I imagine he'll be in the United States eventually to sell another book. Or perhaps the next we hear of him, he'll be admitting that he made stuff up for his book. As he told the Time Out London, "It's better to be quotable than honest."

This is from a story in today's New York Times. The story is about the revelation that a woman's memoirs of being a gangmember and foster child were completely fabricated.

Nan A. Talese, who published Mr. Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, said the combination of these recent episodes could start to change the business’s practices. "I think what editors are going to have to do is point to the things that happened recently and say to their authors, 'If there is anything in your book that can be discovered to be untrue, you better let us know right now, and we’ll deal with it before we publish it,' " Ms. Talese said. But she added: "I don’t think there is any way you can fact-check every single book. It would be very insulting and divisive in the author-editor relationship."