manual of detection

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Umbrellas Across America, Part Two

February 16, 2010 by jedediah | 2 comments

You have to give them back, though.

You have to give them back, though.

The paperback tour for The Manual of Detection brought me on Thursday to Portland, OR. It was my first time in that city, though I knew a bit about it from the many friends who live(d) there, and from Benjamin Parzybok’s novel Couch. I made the pilgrimage to the Powell’s mothership, did an interview for Reading Local, bought a pile of zines and ephemera from Reading Frenzy, then read to a wonderfully warm crowd at Powell’s on Hawthorne while the rain pattered on the roof. Ben Parzybok was there, and after I refused to answer his question during the Q&A, we went to a Thai restaurant called Pok Pok. There, I was faced with a conundrum: Do I eat boar? It turns out that yes, under the right circumstances, I do eat boar.

I was telling Ben and his wife, writer Laura Moulton, and their friend, writer Lisa Hoashi, about how much I appreciate the yellow umbrellas, made available for public use, that I’d been seeing around the Northwest. They said they had no idea what I was talking about, but then, right there in front of Pok Pok, we spotted a repository of these umbrellas, so they knew I wasn’t crazy.

Dark Carnival

It's like a hall of mirrors, except with books instead of mirrors.

I wish I could have seen more of Portland, but it was off to Berkeley the next day for a signing at Dark Carnival. This is an extraordinary place, a labyrinth of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery books, spilling out of the shelves to pile over the carpet and the stairs. You have to climb over the kids reading comics on the floor and duck under inflatable monsters to find what you’re looking for—in my case a copy of Gene Wolfe’s The Urth of the New Sun.

At Dark Carnival I made some more mystery bookmarks. This one here is waiting in a copy of The Manual of Detection for someone to find.

Later I was reunited, after eleven years, with my friend Deborah Steinberg, a writer who also sings in Conspiracy of Venus (check out their cover of Rain Dogs!). We attended a MediaARTS event curated by Tanya Vlach, which was a bit like a rave, except everyone was in theater seats and watching—well, it’s hard to describe. How about: “an exhibition of the intersection of emerging technology, performance, and the moving image attempting to compute what it means to love and to lose.” The performance by Ghosts and Strings was especially good, and I also liked the floating video cube that ocul8r made.

On Saturday I visited the Belmont Library, saw the headquarters of Tachyon Publications, and read with Laurie R. King for the SF in SF series. Among the many fine people in attendance was Edward Gauvin, whose excellent translations of stories by Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud are forthcoming in book form from Small Beer Press.

I had an early flight home the next day, and just when I thought I might meet someone who isn’t a writer, it turned out that my cab driver has written four books, including this one.

I guess now it’s time to write something other than blog posts, mystery bookmarks, and LOST haiku for a while.

Goodbye, goodbye, California

Goodbye, goodbye, California.

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Umbrellas Across America, Part One

February 10, 2010 by jedediah | 3 comments

A few updates from the road. I had some extra time in Chicago, so before my reading at 57th Street Books on Monday, I went with my friend Sondra (http://snailsaregood.blogspot.com) to visit the Art Institute of Chicago, which is free in February (thanks, Big Shoulders!).
We explored the excellent collection of impressionist art—look at those umbrellas!—as well as the American wing, and then spent some time in the Thorne Miniature Rooms, which make one wish for a shrink ray. I saw the work of Ivan Albright for the first time; his Picture of Dorian Grey is appropriately nightmarish, and it’s hard to stand in front of it for long. The Art Institute has on display some iconic works of American art, which are always worth seeing in person, I think, because the experience can breathe fresh life into the images. There’s one bench with a view of both American Gothic and Nighthawks—I highly recommend sitting on that bench for a while.
The reading at 57th Street Books was an intimate affair—there was a blizzard on its way—but those in attendance had some great questions, and I made everyone who came a bookmark. Every one of them, that is, except the gentleman who left a bit early, as though to avoid the matter of bookmarks altogether.
A blizzard kept me in Chicago an extra day, and that’s when the extraordinary news came in that The Manual of Detection is a finalist for the Hammett Prize. Here’s the full lists of nominees:
Megan Abbott, BURY ME DEEP (Simon & Schuster)
Ace Atkins, DEVIL’S GARDEN (Putnam)
Jedediah Berry, THE MANUAL OF DETECTION (The Penguin Press)
Walter Mosley, THE LONG FALL (Riverhead)
George Pelecanos, THE WAY HOME (Little, Brown)
I’m deeply honored to be in such fine company. More information on the Hammett Prize is available from the International Association of Crime Writers.
I’ve now arrived in Seattle, where I just signed books at Seattle Mystery Bookshop, and made more bookmarks, and received an umbrella for my troubles. I was also asked to blog from the bookshop, and the results are here. http://seattlemysteryblog.typepad.com/seattle_mystery/2010/02/on-bookmarks-umbrellas.html
Next, I’m reading at Elliott Bay tonight at 7pm. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll come by. It’s raining, but you have lots of umbrellas in Seattle. Just look at this tube of official Seattle lip balm I found today.

A few updates from the road. I had some extra time in Chicago, so I went with my friend Sondra (snailsaregood.blogspot.com) to visit the Art Institute, which is free in February (thanks, Big Shoulders!).

The French sure know how to promenade.

The French sure know how to promenade.

We explored the excellent collection of impressionist art, visited the American wing, and then spent some time among the Thorne Miniature Rooms, which make one wish for a shrink ray. I saw the work of Ivan Albright for the first time; his Picture of Dorian Grey is appropriately nightmarish, and it’s hard to stand in front of it for long. The Art Institute has on display some iconic works of American art, which are always worth seeing in person, if only because the experience can breathe fresh life into too-familiar images. There’s one bench with a view of both American Gothic and Nighthawks—I highly recommend sitting on that bench for a while.

The reading at 57th Street Books was an intimate affair—there was a blizzard on its way—but those in attendance had some great questions, and I made everyone a bookmark. Everyone , that is, except the gentleman who left a bit early, as though to avoid the matter of bookmarks as soon as I brought it up.

That blizzard kept me in Chicago an extra day, and that’s when the extraordinary news came in that The Manual of Detection is a finalist for the 2010 Hammett Prize. Here’s the full lists of nominees:

  • Megan Abbott, BURY ME DEEP (Simon & Schuster)
  • Ace Atkins, DEVIL’S GARDEN (Putnam)
  • Jedediah Berry, THE MANUAL OF DETECTION (The Penguin Press)
  • Walter Mosley, THE LONG FALL (Riverhead)
  • George Pelecanos, THE WAY HOME (Little, Brown)

I’m deeply honored to be in such fine company, and it’s especially exciting to see Megan Abbott on the list. I had the opportunity to do a reading with Megan last year, and I’ve been a fan of her work ever since. More information on the Hammett Prize is available from the International Association of Crime Writers.

I’ve now arrived in Seattle, where I just signed books at Seattle Mystery Bookshop. I made some more bookmarks there, and wrote about that and some other things for the store’s blog.

Tonight at 7 I’ll read at The Elliott Bay Book Company. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll come by. It’s raining, but if this tube of lip balm I found today is any indication, then there are plenty of umbrellas in this town.

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The Travels-No-More Rides Again

February 5, 2010 by jedediah | 2 comments

On Monday I’ll be back on the road for a series of readings and talks: Chicago’s up first, then Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco & environs. There have been some updates and additions to my schedule, so here it is in full, below.

In addition to reading from The Manual of Detection (just out in paperback), I may also read something new, something that changes every time I read it because it’s written on a pile of index cards that I shuffle every day. Also, I’ll be giving away handcrafted bookmarks, each with a mystery conjured just for you, on the spot.

Other ways to track my movements: facebook, twitter, booktour, spy satellite. I hope that I’m coming to your town and I hope you’ll say hello.

Monday, February 8, 6pm
Seminary Co-op
57th Street Books
1301 East 57th Street, Chicago, IL

Wednesday, February 10, 12pm
Seattle Mystery Bookshop
117 Cherry Street, Seattle, WA

Wednesday, February 10, 7pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
101 S Main Street, Seattle, WA

Thursday, February 11, 7:30pm
Powell’s Books on Hawthorne
3723 SE Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland, OR

Friday, February 12, 5:30pm
Dark Carnival Books
3086 Claremont Avenue, Berkeley, CA

Saturday, February 13, 1:30pm
Belmont Library
1110 Alameda de Las Pulgas, Belmont, CA

Saturday, February 13, 7pm
Variety Preview Room
582 Market Street @ Montgomery
San Francisco, CA

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Memorandum

January 26, 2010 by jedediah | 3 comments

To: J. Berry

From: Great & Mysterious Powers

Re: The Crawford Award

By the time you see this, you may or may not have slept. The phone call you received last night from Gary K. Wolfe, esteemed science fiction editor and critic (not to be confused with Gary K. Wolf, creator of Roger Rabbit), left you giddy, disorientated, and exhilarated. You were, after all, at a gas station somewhere off Connecticut’s Merritt Parkway when Mr. Wolfe informed you that you’d been named winner of the 2010 IAFA Crawford Award for your novel, The Manual of Detection. You were also parked in a 15-minute parking space—and are these, you couldn’t help wondering as they passed, those fifteen minutes?

Afterward, you went into the gas station, wandered the isles for a while, forgot what you were doing there, and left. You called your brother and mumbled incomprehensibly. You sent a text message to a friend. That text message consisted of the letter “a,” repeated perhaps two dozen times, followed by the letter “h” and several exclamation points. Minutes later, you remembered how to drive, continued onward to New York, missed every exit you were supposed to take, and regained consciousness somewhere in Chinatown. Luckily, you knew the way from Canal Street to your sister’s apartment in Brooklyn, and your sister knew the way from there to a good bar.

The second person perspective has never much appealed to you, but certainly you’ll allow us to communicate this much: that receiving the Crawford Award is one of the coolest things you can imagine happening. No wonder you can’t sleep.

Now get yourself together: the paperback’s out today and you’re giving a reading in a few hours.

•

Some additional information, now being reported by Locus:

The award committee shortlisted Deborah Biancotti’s collection A Book of Endings, Kari Sperring’s novel Living with Ghosts, and Ali Shaw’s novel The Girl With Glass Feet, and wanted to commend two other authors whose works were ineligible this year but were highly regarded: Robert V.S. Redick, whose The Red Wolf Conspiracy appeared in 2008 and whose The Ruling Sea appears in 2010, and Michal Ajvaz, whose The Other City originally appeared in Czech in 1993 but was first translated into English by Gerald Turner in 2009.

I’m thrilled and honored to be among the nominees, and deeply grateful to the members of the IAFA for this recognition.

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The Manual of Detection in Paperback

January 23, 2010 by jedediah | 4 comments

The Manual of Detection will be available on Junuary 26th in Penguin Paperback edition. There’s a brand new cover for this lightweight, portable version of the novel, perfect for tucking into your briefcase or travel bag. On the inside, it’s just like the hardcover, minus one typo.

Here are some things you’ll find in this book:

  • typewriters and telephones, often in pairs
  • a mummy with modern-day dental work (suspicious, no?)
  • a carnival in ruins
  • the author’s dog (see page 79)
  • one instance of the word “eldritch”
  • some advice on investigative techniques including shadowing, surveillance, skulduggery, and dream detection
  • somnambulists
  • the answer to that most ancient of riddles: what does the pretty young lady have in her lunchbox?

Here are some nice things people have said about the book:

“This debut novel weaves the kind of mannered fantasy that might result if Wes Anderson were to adapt Kafka…. [Berry creates] the feeling of inhabiting a strange and haunting dream, with its own persuasive logic and somnambulant pacing.”
—The New Yorker

“[Berry] defies many mystery novel conventions, but adventurous readers who stay with his strange and fabulous debut work will be handsomely rewarded…. There is nothing mysterious about the appeal of this inventive, outrageous and often amusing dream-within-a-dream.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“The plot’s bursting with as many twists and surprises as you could hope for…. It steams along the smooth rails of Berry’s neatly constructed sentences, barreling round each well-cambered turn with barely a judder.”
—London Review of Books

“Jedediah Berry has an ear well-tuned to the styles of the detective story from Holmes to Spade and can reproduce atmosphere with loving skill.”
—Michael Moorcock

“Inventive, atmospheric, and fiendishly delightful. If you’ve ever fallen under the spell of Borges, Ray Bradbury, or Angela Carter, I urge you to acquire your own copy of The Manual of Detection.”
—Kelly Link

There are many events and readings planned for the weeks ahead, in cities and townships including Brooklyn, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. All the details are available on the sidebar to the left, on this google calendar, and at BookTour. Please come out and say hello.

More information on the book, including links to purchase a copy of your own, are available on The Manual of Detection page.

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Some Pinkertonia

January 5, 2010 by jedediah | 3 comments

While working on The Manual of Detection, I did a good bit of research into the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. My own Agency’s logo (an open eye) and motto (”Never Sleeping”) were adapted from those of the Pinkertons, and intended in part as a nod to that outfit’s influence on the conception of my fictional mystery-solving organization. Both found their way onto the hardcover edition of the book, and that design, by Glenn O’Neill, was just voted best crime fiction cover of 2009 over on The Rap Sheet blog.

The Pinkertons have a fascinating history. Allan Pinkerton, founder of the agency, served as security to President Lincoln during the Civil War, and prevented an assassination attempt. (He wasn’t there at Ford’s Theater that other time.) The Pinkertons earned a degree of infamy during the events of the Homestead Strike of 1892. They were feared by outlaws, and were hired to track Jesse James as well as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There is, according to this wikipedia article, a federal law still on the books which prohibits Pinkerton employees from working for the United States government.

What I didn’t know until recently was that Allan Pinkerton published several collections of real-life detective stories, “transcribed from the Records” of the Pinkerton Agency. All are in the public domain, and have been made available in electronic editions at feedbooks.com. I’m looking forward to reading these, and I wish I’d known about them a few years ago. In the preface to one volume, Mr. Pinkerton writes:

If there be any incidental embellishment, it is so slight that the actors in these scenes from the drama of life would never themselves detect it; and if the incidents seem to the reader at all marvelous or improbable, I can but remind him, in the words of the old adage, that “Truth is stranger than fiction.”

Indeed. Feedbooks also has on display some of the wonderful old cover designs for those books. Of particular note—to me, at least—is the cover of The Expressman and the Detective, with its green cover and gold foil never-sleeping stare. And for reasons which anyone who’s read The Manual of Detection will understand, the title The Somnambulist and the Detectives came as a fine surprise.

The paperback design for my book is quite different—“Magritte noir,” I’ve been calling it. The paperback will be available from Penguin on January 26th, and I’ll have more to say about it soon.

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