Trimming the fat
The New York Times points out today that Paul Anderson’s 2004 tome, Hunger’s Brides, is being released by his American publisher, Carroll & Graf, in paperback — and at half the length of the original hardcover. The new, skinnier version runs to only 750 pages, a far cry from the “4 pounds, 9 ounces and 1,360 pages” that it used to be.
Surprisingly, the idea to cut the book in half appears to have been Anderson’s. The Times spoke to Philip Turner, editor-in-chief at Carroll & Graf, who said the author wanted to “take a crack at reducing the book’s length.”
Fait accompli, it would seem. The “skinny” paperback version is going by the title Sor Juana or the Breath of Heaven, and has the subtitle, The Essential Story from the Epic Hunger’s Brides.
“Essential,” huh? If that’s the case, one can only wonder why those other, apparently inessential, 610 pages were included in the first place.
In other Carroll & Graf news, Philip Turner is launching his own eponymous imprint at the house. In recent years, he has published several Canadian titles at Carroll & Graf, including Roméo Dallaire’s Shake Hands with the Devil — which sounds like the kind of book he’s now looking for for the new imprint. “It’s going to be a purpose-driven imprint, thematically propelled by books whose authors are perceived as truthtellers, whistleblowers, muckrakers and revisionist historians,” Turner says in the company press release.
Related links:
Read the Times story here
Read a 2004 Q&Q article about Hunger’s Brides here
Read an April 2006 Q&Q article about Carroll & Graf here
