Rick Simonson

The White Tiger's Award

From a Man Booker Prize shortlist group that included at least a few other books that we had readerly affection for, congratulations are due to Mumbai-residing debut novelist Aravind Adiga and his spirited novel, The White Tiger. Among the pleasures in seeing the Booker go to this book, with the attendant boost in sales sure to happen, is the payoff for Martha Levin and her colleagues at Free Press.

At a time when publishing literary fiction, much less debut fiction by an author who isn't going to be making the touring rounds, is increasingly looked at askance by players up and down the line in the bookworld, it was heartening to see how Martha and her colleagues worked, starting a year ago this fall, to get this book going ahead of publication.

For some of us who've watched and admired Martha's work over the years - particularly her extraordinary run at Anchor Doubleday - the way she championed The White Tiger put some of us in mind of that time. From the late 1980s into the 90s, Martha Levin and co. published international literature and domestic writing by writers of different ethnic and gender backgrounds to a greater degree than almost anyone else in large house New York publishing - and did so without a special imprint drawing attention to such. There was a straightforward way to publishing and promoting writing by Hanan al-Shaykh, Urvashi Vaid, Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz, Laura Esquivel, and others that was refreshing to behold.

Even without the Booker, the efforts of the Free Press folks was looking to pay off. While The White Tiger never 'took off,' it also never quietly disappeared. A few booksellers on our store's staff were handselling it. There was a steady thing going for it all along. It seemed well-poised to do a nice jump up when the paperback would arrive.

That day is upon us. Free Press already has the paperback of The White Tiger en route. Its receiving the Booker will actually mean (for us, where I work) a number of readers will still want the hardcover. And the 'nice jump up' will now likely resemble a great leap. Congratulations, again, to all. 

Posted by Rick Simonson on October 15, 2008 | Comments (0)