Archive for July, 2010

One of the most anticipated new books around the FSG offices (and out in the real world, I daresay) is Jeffrey Eugenides’ follow-up to Middlesex. That 2003 novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize and was later selected for Oprah’s Book Club, has sold more than 2 million copies and is on many readers’ lists of their favorite contemporary novels. We caught up (virtually) with Jeff in his studio in Princeton, New Jersey, where he is rounding the turn on his new novel.

—Jonathan Galassi, President and Publisher of FSG

Galassi: Please tell us everything you can about your new book, starting with the title.

Jeffrey Eugenides: I hate to begin by withholding information, but I’d rather not divulge the title of the new book at the moment. I remember when my wife was pregnant and we were trying out different names for the baby. Anytime we told someone a prospective name, they would find something wrong with it. It rhymed with something not-nice. It was just begging to be deformed into a schoolyard epithet. The result was that we never named our child and refer to her now only by her SS#. So I’m not going to make that mistake again and tell you the title of my book.

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“It is difficult, as you know, to create interest in new writers.” -FSG letter introducing Susan Sontag’s first book, 1963

FSG has published Susan Sontag since her debut novel The Benefactor. Here are a few selections from an archive of almost fifty years of material. Note the pitch-perfect location for the Volcano Lover publication party, and the lines from the teenage Sontag’s diary on the back of At the Same Time.

Audio: Sontag at the Prague Writer’s Festival in 2000 with Robert Stone and William Styron

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© Prague Writers’ Festival, 2000

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I sat down with three designers over coffee and muffins to talk about how they came to their jobs, and where they think the industry is headed. Susan Mitchell is Senior Vice President and Art Director at FSG; Charlotte Strick is Art Director, also at FSG; and Henry Sene Yee is Creative Director at Picador.

—Ryan Chapman, Online Marketing Manager

“I’m not just here to create something beautiful. Sometimes I’m here to be a plumber.”

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FSG hosts a reading series at the Russian Samovar in New York, most recently with Lydia Davis and David Means. Produced by two of our assistant editors, Chantal Clarke and Mark Krotov, the readings occur at irregular intervals throughout the year. Homemade vodka is often consumed.

Here, David Means reads “The Blade,” a short story from his recent collection The Spot.

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Susan Mitchell selected a few designers from the past she considers iconic: Paul Rand, George Salter, and W.A. Dwiggins. Here’s a quick look at their work:

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