BESTSELLERS & BEST FRIENDS
My book publishing blog, with murder mysteries woven through it.
If this is your first visit, be sure to start with “1. Let’s do it!”
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I couldn’t say it better than did Grove Atlantic publisher Morgan Entrekin, “George Gibson is admired around the world as a brilliant, gracious, passionate publisher and editor.”
George Gibson
I’ve known George since his early days at David Godine (a much respected Boston-based house). Better yet, like many, I can call him “a good friend.” George was Director of Marketing at Addison-Wesley’s trade division, the longtime publisher of Walker & Company, publishing director at Bloomsbury USA, and he’s currently executive editor at Grove Atlantic.
George edited and/or published Dava Sobel's Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, Ross King's Brunelleschi's Dome, Mark Kurlansky's Salt and Cod, Morrie Schwartz's Morrie: In His Own Words, Warren Berger's A More Beautiful Question, Carol Anderson's White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, and my personal favorite, Donna Leon’s Inspector Guido Brunetti series.
George’s departure from Addison Wesley (“to learn Italian and better my tennis game”), and my taking over his position, is what made possible my nine-year-old son secretly signing books in the Addison Wesley warehouse on a Saturday morning. (George, knowing that you read this blog, Max sends along his “Thanks a lot.”).
George and I are now both in Manhattan and every other month we enjoy a dinner together at Bar Six off of 14th Street.
At our every-other-month dinner last night, I asked how his month in Martha’s Vineyard was this year (he’s done that every year since his childhood).
Bar Six
George happily said, “It was healthy, full of promising manuscripts, and drinks with good friends.”
He continued, “Although it was weird to see Bill Franks back at Grapes of Wrath.”
“What?!”
“You don’t know?”
He quickly explained that Barbara died and per the terms of their divorce, the store went back to Bill. “He was so happy to be back. But really, he doesn’t look good, nor does the store.
“Hold on! Barbara died?”
“You didn’t hear? She was killed, found dead on the floor of her store when her staff arrived one morning. Awful, just awful. Then Bill showed up a few days later to take over the store.”
How the hell did I miss that news? It was surely in all the industry journals – Publishers Weekly, Publishers Lunch, and Shelf Awareness. I’ve checked-out from world and national news these past four years. It’s all so awful, it’s such a damn mess out there. I no longer watch the news, I quit reading The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. I ignore the news on social media and instead focus on dog videos. And I just skim the New York Times headlines (I know what the article’s going to say). But I do read the publishing news.
“When,” I asked George.
He told me. Aha, that week in Los Angeles, at an Airbnb without the promised Wi-Fi, which was OK because I was completely consumed by spending time with my kids and granddaughter, and having drinks every night. It was an exhausting week. I even skipped the industry news.
I asked, “Who? Why?”
“Good question. It didn’t seem to be a robbery, just a few books tossed on the floor.”
Holy hell!
Dinner over, I rushed home to Google it. Yep, the industry journals, the Boston Globe, and the Vineyard Gazette had articles. Each with one sentence noting Barbara’s death, a second sentence saying the police were seeking leads, and then 20 sentences of deserving and kind words about Barbara. But nothing else.
You see where this is going, right?
Barbara’s death on Martha’s Vineyard sounded like Laurie’s death in Ligonier.
I needed to know more.
But I didn’t know the Vineyard police like I did Ligonier’s.
And I didn’t know anybody on staff at the island’s newspaper.
I phoned George on the wild chance he might know a clerk at the Grapes of Wrath.
“Yep, my niece, Vanessa, works there. I’ll give her a heads-up then email you her phone number.” Kind of him not to ask what the hell I was up to. I would have. But like I said, George is a gentleman.
Then, before the call ended, George suddenly laughed, but not in a funny way. “Did you know Bill fancied himself a writer? Specifically, nonfiction for children. That’s what he was going to do after losing the bookstore. He claimed to have many book proposals to pitch. Wanted me to look at them. But Jane, Alyson, and Phoebe [childrens editors we both knew] warned me off, they all had already looked and he just didn’t have it.”
Poor Bill and his writing dreams. His is not an uncommon tale.
Oh, and an hour ago I was left a voicemail from an unknown caller. I listened. It was simply a song called “Einstein Killed Me.” Never knew such a song existed. You can listen to it here. It has great lyrics, like:
It’s possiblе to not tell a lie
Take you and the life you made
Step outside
Tomorrow: Vanessa