Johnny Temple: Kurt Vonnegut & Seven Stories Gestate a Bestseller

All who care for the livelihood of indie publishing can toast Seven Stories Press for its remarkable success with Kurt Vonnegut's new book, A Man Without a Country . It rocketed onto bestseller lists upon its launch in mid-September, hitting #1 at the Los Angeles Times and #5 at the New York Times. Seven weeks later, the book remains on these lists, despite a stocking crunch that left some bookstore shelves temporarily empty of the book. Seven Stories now has nearly 200,000 copies in print.

Ultimately, A Man Without a Country is "a fruition of our 21-year relationship with Kurt Vonnegut," says my friend Dan Simon, publisher of Seven Stories Press. Dan's first encounter with Vonnegut took place on a Manhattan street corner in the early '80s, in which Dan implored the author to write an introduction to a reissue of Nelson Algren's classic Never Come Morning. There on the sidewalk, Vonnegut replied immediately to Dan's impassioned appeal: "I'd be honored." Over time they have continued to work together, and in recent years, Seven Stories has published Vonnegut on several occasions, including a short fiction volume, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (2000), as well as The Eden Express (2002), by son Mark Vonnegut. Johnny Temple continues below ?

Kurt Vonnegut's new book is filled with his lovably lucid prose, enchantingly frank delivery and bursts of political bile; as Dan says, "You get the feeling this guy is taking the bus and subway with us." The excitement around the book is compounded by the dread that this could be Vonnegut's last. And in fact, the completion of the book was a long, drawn-out endeavor that approached the brink of implosion on more than one occasion.

A Man Without a Country was partially adapted out of a series of pieces that Vonnegut wrote for In These Times magazine. Dan characterizes the process of developing the book as "periods of enormous enthusiasm" followed by days when Vonnegut would call the project a "childish mess" and threaten to cancel it.

There was no cancellation, fortunately, and the book's early success is breathing wind into the sails of not just Seven Stories Press, but also In These Times magazine, Dial Press and other publishers of Vonnegut's previous work. At the age of 82, Vonnegut has made memorable appearances on PBS television and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, as well as on NPR and other mainstream media outlets.

So I asked Dan: Wouldn't any publisher bringing out this book be greeted with a similar level of success? To which he quickly replied, "No publisher could have done this book." After all, according to Dan, the volume arose out of a "deeply personal gestation process." This being the case, I would conclude that the publishing business in 2005?too often characterized by a hunt for quick hits?could benefit by upping the gestation quotient.

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JOHNNY TEMPLE is the publisher and editor-in-chief of the New York?based Akashic Books, an award-winning independent company dedicated to publishing urban literary fiction and political nonfiction. He won the American Association of Publishers' 2005 Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing. Temple plays bass guitar in two bands, Girls Against Boys and New Wet Kojak; both bands have toured extensively around the world and released albums on independent and major record companies.