THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER by Karen Dionne (G.P. Putman’s Sons) THE KELLOGGS: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek by Howard Markel (Pantheon Books) Congratulations to Ms. Dionne and Mr. Markel as well as their editors and publishers. View the complete list of 2018 Michigan Notable Books here. The Night for Notable celebration, hosted by the Library of Michigan Foundation and featuring author Richard Ford as keynote speaker, will take place in Detroit on April 7.  

On sale from Putnam on January 9, this profoundly moving and compulsively readable family love story asks the question: If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?  Beautifully rendered in Benjamin’s lucid, magical prose, THE IMMORTALISTS  is a sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, probing the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next.  It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds. Read on to go Behind the Pages of THE IMMORTALISTS. Sally Kim: How did you discover Chloe Benjamin and what were the first things that struck you about THE IMMORTALISTS manuscript? [caption id="attachment_9111" align="alignright" width="199"] Sally Kim[/caption] I was lucky that Chloe’s agent included me on her submission list, and I remember loving the book from its pitch alone. (I think I might have even sent her an idiotic note like, “I love this book already!”)  There are 101 things I love about this book, but what struck me right away is how Chloe takes such a high concept (to continue that overused term) and completely delivers on the page-turning story level, but also just slays you with her beautiful writing, line by line. I remember having to pause at times, just to fully savor a turn of phrase or a stunning moment. It’s so rare to have both strengths—both incredibly hard to accomplish—live in one novel. How would you describe the editor/author process as this book reached its final form? It may sound funny, but we started the editing process even before the auction! I’ll always remember that first call with Chloe, when I was trying to woo her, and we jumped right into talking about changes for certain characters, amping up a story’s thread…what if we tried this, and what about that.  We clicked right away and talked for over an hour, and I knew I’d love working with her.  She was smart, funny, humble – but she’d worked *hard* on this book, over many years, and was confident and firm in all the right ways: she was open, but also had a strong vision. In other words, my idea of the perfect collaborator! What elements of THE IMMORTALISTS do you think will resonate most strongly with readers? Another question with too many answers! But if I had to whittle it down to the one people continue to write in, comment, post about: It’s the way this book takes such large ideas—such as: Can you change your destiny? Can a story be real, just because you believe it to be true?—and gives you a way to examine them up close, with characters you live a lifetime with, without proposing to give you one final answer at the end. Chloe Benjamin: What was the inspiration behind THE IMMORTALISTS’ plot premise and creation of the primary storylines? [caption id="attachment_9112" align="alignright" width="300"] Chloe Benjamin
(C) Nathan Jandl[/caption] I’ve always been drawn to big questions: What are the benefits and perils of knowledge? How can we live fully in the face of uncertainty? And how do we love through and despite the possibility of loss? These questions simmered in the background as I built the structure of THE IMMORTALISTS, which follows four siblings who, as children, receive prophecies about the dates that they will supposedly die. The structure of the novel–it’s told in four sections, one per each sibling, each picking up where the previous one let off–came to me very early. I also knew I wanted each sibling to be quite different, both in their life experiences and in their orientation toward the prophecy. All four required a great deal of research. How do you see readers identifying with your novel and its characters? A reader may not be a magician like Klara, or a gay man finding himself in 1980s San Francisco, like Simon–but the questions about life and loss that these characters struggle with are, I think, universal. Secretly, I hope that readers will connect with the siblings who are on the face of it quite different from them. We live in hard, fractured times, and books are rare in their ability to inspire empathy.

  Ivan Held, President of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, said, “Everyone who worked with Sue admired her, flipped for the books, and were in awe of her 25-book creation, Kinsey Milhone.  But on top of that -- we also all LOVED her.  With her wry, Kentucky accent she inspired a really deep and genuine love from everyone who worked with her in house.” Thirty-five years ago, Grafton launched one of the most acclaimed and celebrated mystery series of all time with A is for Alibi, and with it created the model of the modern female detective with Kinsey Millhone, a feisty, whip-smart woman who is not above breaking the rules to solve a case or save a life.  Like her fictional alter ego, Grafton was a true original, a model for every woman who has ever said the hell with this and struck out on her own independent way. Grafton’s books have sold untold millions and are published in twenty-eight countries and in twenty-six languages—including Estonian, Bulgarian, and Indonesian. Her most recent novel, Y IS FOR YESTERDAY, which published in August 2017, received with tremendous praise and debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. News of her passing ran in outlets throughout the country (and world) including in the New York Times, Associated Press,  USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, Vulture, NPR, and CNN.  The Washington Post wrote, “[Kinsey Millhone is] one of the most endearing, vivid and memorable characters in modern crime fiction … Ms. Grafton examines human character as deeply as any clues that might solve a crime. Critics noted that the stories often had an undercurrent of tender observation seldom found in the hard-boiled fiction of male writers.” There has been an outpouring of love on social media from fans including former president Bill Clinton, who tweeted, “RIP Sue Grafton. Hillary and I loved all your novels from A is for Alibi to Y is for Yesterday. We’ll miss Kinsey and you. Godspeed.” Fellow authors shared their fond remembrances of Sue including Louise Penny, who said, “Kinsey was a brilliant creation and a companion for many of us, for years. Thank you, Sue, for leading the way. And for always being so gracious to those of us who followed.” David Baldacci wrote, “To know Sue Grafton was an honor. To call her a friend was a thrill. She was a great writer, one of our absolute best in any genre, but she was an even greater person. 2018 will be far emptier without her.” And James Lee Burke, who said, “Everyone liked Sue. She had a great wit and knew how to bring the house down, without ever being grandiose. Her passing is a big loss. Sue was a real trooper, one of those who sets the standard. I think her greatest gift to others is the dignity and composure and confidence and perseverance that characterized her career. I think that's a pretty good legacy to leave behind. [caption id="attachment_9066" align="alignleft" width="179"] Sue Grafton
(c) Steven Humphrey[/caption] Anyway, here's to you, Sue. You're the best.” More remembrances came from the likes of C.J. Box, Robert Crais, Daniel Silva, Eric Jerome Dickey, Harlan Coben, Lisa Scottoline, Ruth Ware. Sandra Brown, Sara Paretsky, Jeff Abbott, Laura Lippman, Faye Kellerman, Debbie Macomber, Alafair Burke, and Meg Gardiner, to name a few. Sue and Kinsey will be remembered as international icons (both adored a peanut butter and pickle sandwich and a timeless black wrap dress) and treasured by millions of readers across lines of gender, geography, age, race, and creed. As Grafton’s daughter, Jamie, said in a statement on the author’s Facebook Page, “the alphabet now ends at Y.” A personal remembrance from Marian Wood, Sue Grafton’s longtime editor and friend: “In 1980, I got 60 pages of a manuscript. It was a snowy day and more bad weather was forecast, so I grabbed the 60 pages plus a couple of manuscripts and rode back to Brooklyn to enjoy a few snow days at home. “I can tell you, I was stunned by those 60 pages. I wanted more. I wanted the whole book. I wanted to publish this amazing writer. “But there was an obstacle. My publisher. “‘I don’t get it,’ he said after reading those sixty pages. Luckily, I had already given them to the marketing director, who did get it and we became a team, and the publisher caved.  That was the beginning of A Is for Alibi.  You might say the rest is history as the books took off and the market grew exponentially. “I’m a seat-of-the pants editor. When I read something and the bomb goes off in my head, I know it’s for me, I know it’s amazing, I know with backing, we can make it fly.  And so it was with the alphabet series. And sales multiplied with each new book. “Sue Grafton was a find all right. She was also an extraordinary human being. Already forty with a ton of experience being pushed around by movie personnel, all she wanted was control over her work—no interference from pseudo-smart twenty-five year old movie mavens. Books offered her that. Let me tell you, by the time we connected, she was a tough, smart, and dedicated craftswoman and also the most generous and kindest writer you could work with. And so, for forty years, we worked and laughed and loved Kinsey. And so did the world it seemed. “In truth, it was a marriage made in heaven though the then agent could never have known that. In my youth, I loathed Nancy Drew and could not tolerate Agatha Christie. But here, in Kinsey, was my dream character: sharp, funny, vulnerable, and tough. And a little off the grid when it came to relationships thanks to an irregular childhood and an aunt who sort of raised her. This was a new kind of detective: a woman with quirks but also with a sense of herself, with empathy but also with street smarts.   She opened a door for me and for thousands of women and, yes, men. It was a revelation how quickly men caught on to this oddball but terrific woman. She broke the gender barrier. There is a reason so many men and women named their daughters Kinsey over the years. “Thank you Sue: You made a real difference in the lives of so many men and women even as you entertained us with so many wonderful and sometimes really scary books. “My good fortune increased by the time Sue was ready to take on the next letter.  A Is for Alibi was selling like crazy, and Sue had gathered up her courage, left her agent, and took on Molly Friedrich, who has been with her—and me—since B Is for Burglar. I like to think we have made a really good team. “Sue died this December. She had finished the letter Y in the series. There will never be a letter Z.  Just as she did not want anyone tampering with her work and therefore forbade any movies made from her books, so she made it clear there would never be a ghost writer.  So with Y Is for Yesterday, the alphabet ends. "

[caption id="attachment_7695" align="alignright" width="197"] Dacre Stoker
Credit: Todd Lisa Studio[/caption] Co-written by Bram Stoker’s great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker and author J.D. Barker, DRACUL is the first Dracula prequel to be authorized by the Stoker estate.  The story, which is based on the missing, never-published first 100 pages of the original Dracula manuscript, centers around a 21-year-old Bram Stoker meeting an ungodly, evil being, who he traps in an ancient tower for the longest, most horrific night of his life. This evil being goes on to be the subject of Stoker’s iconic novel. News of Putnam Executive Editor Mark Tavani’s book acquisition and the Paramount Pictures deal was featured in multiple outlets this week, including Deadline, Variety, i09, AV Club, Publishers Weekly and Publishers Lunch.  DRACUL is scheduled for publication by Putnam in Fall 2018.

Sophie Chen Keller was born in Beijing, China, and raised in Ohio and California. Her fiction has won several awards and has appeared in publications such as Glimmer Train and Pedestal. After graduating from Harvard, she moved to New York City. To find out how Sophie created her wondrous book, in the process finding the voice of her characters and the magical world of THE LUSTER OF LOST THINGS, read this “Meet Our Author” interview. What inspired you to write THE LUSTER OF LOST THINGS?  In 2014, while camping on a volcano in Maui, I came across a “Lost” flyer for a camera that contained meaningful family photos. I began wondering whether that camera, with its silicon memory of lost moments, had been returned to its owner. I wondered who responded to flyers like that one. What if there were people out there who made it their mission to look for what others had lost? Why were they doing it? Was there something else people were looking for when they looked for a missing camera? That was when I had my first inkling of who Walter might be.  Aside from that, I knew I wanted my first book to be a celebration of childhood. My memories from then are some of my most vivid: humid summers that went on for ages, imaginary adventures in sandbox castles, PB&Js cut into triangles, bedtime stories that took me to magical places. Those days are lost now, but sometimes, when we start to feel suffocated by darkness, we could use a return to that time when the world was still bright and miraculous, and we could so clearly see the goodness that lived around us and in us. Walter reminds us to see beyond the surface – the “skin of the world,” as he calls it. The tale he tells is simple and uplifting, and at the same time layered with observations on what it means to live and be human. As you’re experiencing his journey, I hope you’re also savoring the search for the layers underneath, both inside and outside the pages; I hope that what you find will fill you with wonder. What was it like to write in Walter’s voice?  Is his speech disorder based on a real disorder?  Walter’s voice came pretty naturally. You could say that he found me, while I had to find his disorder in the course of my research; I spoke with parents, speech pathologists, professors, and doctors, who kindly shared with me their knowledge, experiences, hopes, and concerns. Walter’s condition is based on a type of motor speech disorder called childhood apraxia of speech, although the particulars of his case would be unusual. Childhood apraxia of speech is often misdiagnosed as autism, cerebral palsy, ADD or ADHD, an intellectual disability, or a developmental language disorder, among others. It’s actually a separate diagnosis—a neurological disorder where the brain has trouble coordinating the muscle movements required to produce the intended speech. The mind is a vast, complex and largely mysterious landscape, and in the case of apraxia, some wires have gotten crossed or short-circuited and signals sent by the brain aren’t getting through properly to, say, the lips or the tongue or the face. The novel celebrates the many different kinds of people who live in New York City. Why did you decide to set the story in Manhattan? I moved to New York City at a formative time in life, right after college, and I tend to write about places I understand and connect with on an instinctual level. I haven’t been to any other place where it’s quite so obvious how different people can be, and how similar, too. You’re reminded every day, in the curious combinations of smells and the unfiltered emotions spilling out onto the sidewalk. And you just might discover The Lavenders around the next corner. In my mind, the West Village especially takes on a shade of happy wonder, because that’s where my now husband lived—on a certain street named Carmine—when we first met.   The Lavenders is an unforgettable place. Why did you decide to set the novel in a bakery? Mostly because I like eating and watching shows about food; I figured I would also like writing about food. The novel is about connecting and belonging, and food is something we associate with coming together, or with being transported home, wherever and whenever that might be. I like discovering new places and trying different desserts, so The Lavenders is an amalgamation of various shops: the whimsical tiles from a chocolate shop in California, the classic brass finishes from a patisserie in France, the sugary sense of brightness from a bakery in downtown Manhattan, the dash of hominess from a Bäckerei in Germany, and any kind of edible treat you could imagine from everywhere—and there you are. What do you do when you’re not writing? I read. I travel. I dwell on things. Sometimes, when there’s a piano nearby, I play it. What’s next for you? I’m working on a second novel, and that’s about all I’ll say. Since I usually figure out things as I go, I have trouble talking about what I’m writing until it’s been written.