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About Me
- moonrat
- I'm a recovering editorial assistant. I'm like most of my kind: impoverished coffee-and-gin survivalists, underpaid but ambitious, bitter but hopeful. Painfully self-conscious, woefully self-congratulatory, willfully self-indulgent. Yes, I'm white, but I'm trying to get over it. Accurate spelling (to the dismay of my boss) is not among my interests. So read forgivingly.
Favorite Backlist
- FAQ about the Ass
- Moonrat's Guide to Getting Published
- Moonrat's Guide to Getting a Job in Publishing
- What Makes a Dream Author
- Why You Should Never Submit Unagented to a Publishing Company
- How Royalties Work
- What's Safe to Publish Online?
- Rules for Not Making Editors Hate You
- Marketing Your Book (and Knowing What to Ask Your Publisher to Do)
- Things You Should Be Able to Expect from Your Editor
- It Is a Truth Universally Acknowledged That an Individual in Possession of a Word Processor Must Be in Want of a Book Deal (Lessons of Publishing from Jane Austen)
- Sonnets for Moonrat by Beloved Readers
I've been editing today
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7 comments:
I put it on hold at the library just this afternoon. Eep! What happened to March?!
I did read it. It was especially fun for me, an Emma Goldman, fan. (Although the scene where Doctorow ruined a quite lovely, sensual moment between Emma and Evelyn by spewing - well you know what he spewed - made me pissed off for at least the next 50 pages.
But there was that moment early on, that moment when I'm reading a book (or watching a movie) and I know my time is not going to be wasted, that I can trust the author. In Ragtime it was the sentences "There were no Negroes." "There were no immigrants." The content along with the sentence structure did that perfect thing of letting you know the predjudices of the characters and at the same time that the author doesn't share them. It's hard to make this sort of silent communication between author and reader effective without causing the narrative to stumble.
Sandra--I know EXACTLY what you mean. I agree.
I loved how much of it was real history. I was also pretty satisfied with myself that some of the history was ringing bells.
To be honest, I wish the little girl/Tateh story had been better pursued. Obviously Coalhouse Walker's story is the most important of the book, but once it came along all the other threads kind of dropped. I have been told, though, when I posted my review on thebookbook, that that's the point:
http://tinyurl.com/yfgtyoh
Mm haven't read it, but I'm intrigued by your little bio on the side. "Recovering" editorial assistant? What do you do now? Any advice for me, since I'm going to graduate in May and I've had 4 publishing internships so far, so I'm looking to be an editorial or literary assistant soon :)
Could we just kind of go round and start the readalong again? I was looking at our much-neglected basement bookcases the other day and saw that we own a copy of Ragtime. Who knew. Must be the husband's, because I'm sure I've never read it. Anyhow, I took it as a Sign and was a little ticked because I was too late. Relaunch?
I read it a number of years ago and loved it. I actually forced my husband (not a fiction guy at all) to read it and he enjoyed it so much he went out and bought Homer & Langley.
I agree with you, though, about the Coalhouse Walker story taking completely over. I liked the interweaving narratives in the first half of the book much more than the CW -dominated second part (although I did find that story interesting as well.)
Read it a month or two ago for a bookclub and then couldn't make the meeting - I loved it! Would love a chance to revisit.
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