(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011) For many months The Submission had a different cover entirely (it’s on the galley) which had appealing elements but didn’t seem to cohere. Perhaps I had been spending too much time with my characters, but I kept thinking, This is not a cover of which Mo—Mohammad Khan, the stubborn architect at the center of The Submission—would approve. Then, at the proverbial last minute, FSG hired a new creative director, Rodrigo Corral, and I was invited to look at […]

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(Harper, 2003) Never Mind the Pollacks was the second of Neal Pollack’s swaggering, impertinent, scene-crashing impersonations. His first was the send up of testosterone-sodden literary pomposity, The Neal Pollack Anthology Of American Literature. (Not gracing your bookshelf? Goodness gracious. The book is a cavalcade of brilliantly crafted bookish smart-aleckery. A total delight.  Treat yourself…really.) In Pollacks, he hijacks the persona of beloved rock critic Lester Bangs and proceeds to stumble and careen through decades of rock history, lore, and criticism, […]

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(Knopf, 2012) When I finished writing The Flame Alphabet, Tom McCarthy’s novel C had just come out, with a dazzling jacket by Peter Mendelsund. This confirmed what I’d been suspecting: Mendelsund is a tremendously strong, intuitive designer. I’d already drooled over a few of his jackets, including the Kafka reprints he recently completed.    And then when I met him, and we spoke a bit, I learned he was a passionate reader, a deep reader. He knew The Flame Alphabet […]

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