Lord of Misrule, and the small press who could.

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Although it is not, strictly speaking, self-publishing news I think that it is worth commenting on this year's winner of the National Book Award for fiction, awarded earlier this month.  Lord of MisRule by Jaimy Gorden is a stylish novel about the lives of people and horses entwined together at a run-down racetrack.

It was project the author had been working on for over ten years and at one point almost abandoned.  Lord of Misrule was finally published by McPherson, a very small literary press whose typical print run is a modest 2000 copies. In the wake of the win Lord of Misrule has been picked up by an imprint of Random House. 

Kudos to Jaimy Gordon, but also to Bruce McPherson for helping to shepherd this book from a desk draw to critical  and almost-certain economic success.

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Comments

Kae said…
A real plus for small presses.
Thanks for this post.
4:44 PM
Shannon Yarbrough said…
McPherson actually published Gordon's two previous novels, so it was no shock that they picked up this one as well. But kudos to Gordon for the win, especially since the book came out so late in the year. Definitely puts a feather in McPherson's cap too since their investment finally paid off.
10:41 AM
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