I’ve been thinking a lot about blurbs lately. The blurbs I’m talking about are book descriptions, also called flap copy, because it’s the description of the book you can find on the inside flap of a hardcover book. On a paperback, it’s usually on the back cover. I often read these descriptions in publisher’s catalogs long before a book comes out. It’s part of how I decide what to order for the store (along with the author’s track record, confirmed media appearances, and a host of other criteria). Lately, though, I’ve been noticing that some of the blurbs for the books I’ve been reading don’t always meet expectations for what the book turns out to be.
It started a few months ago when I read Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad, a powerful memoir about being diagnosed with cancer in her early 20s, her treatment, and then the aftermath of trying to re-enter the kingdom of the well. The blurb led me to believe that the book is mainly about the road trip the author takes to interview some of the many people who reached out to her during her treatment, strangers who offered support. The book jacket shows the author and her dog and the van I assumed they used when they hit the road. But this is not really the case. The author doesn’t purchase the van until after the events of the book. She takes her initial road trip in a borrowed Subaru. Now listen, I can don my marketing cap and see how this image with the van is much more selling. And this road trip doesn’t happen until the last quarter of the book. I felt a little misled—but it was a good book and I was glad I read it, so what’s the difference?
On a trip down to Providence last week, I downloaded a new audiobook for a memoir that’s been getting a lot of buzz, one I mentioned a few weeks ago in these pages for my nonfiction fall preview of books. It’s called Stay True by Hua Hsu and I was led to believe, given the blurb, that it’s the story of a friendship. And I suppose it is. Eventually. But for my hour-and-a-half drive from Beverly Farms to Providence, I had barely met Ken yet. It’s a short book! So, was this a memoir about a friendship? Or was it a memoir about being the son of Tawainese immigrants and about assimilation and art and finding your place in the world? Both sound pretty good to me, but maybe the latter sounds too generic, too much like a whole lot of other books.
Now I’m reading The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn. As the title suggests, it’s purportedly about a young girl in England who starts staging plays in the skeleton of a washed-up whale. Well, let me tell you, the whale does not turn up until page 97. (The book weighs in at over 500 pages, so perhaps the author can be forgiven for such a long preamble. On the other hand, perhaps not.) Regardless, this is truly an excellent book. I have become lost in the historical setting; the neglectful parents; the wild, exuberant child at the heart of the story; the crumbling manor house; England on the cusp of change between the wars. I cannot wait to see what will happen now that the whale is here.
I order books for the store months before their publication dates, so you can forgive me for being pleasantly surprised when I unwrapped copies of a book I hadn’t remembered ordering that are now arriving at the perfect time: Blurb Your Enthusiasm by Louise Wilder, a longtime copywriter at Penguin Books. She has written some 5,000 blurbs over the years and now in this new book she tells us how she does it. The description promises: “Discover why it’s good to judge a book by its cover. Maybe even this one…”
Well, I’m sold.
Hannah Harlow is owner of The Book Shop, an independent bookstore in Beverly Farms. Harlow writes biweekly recommendations for us. See more of what she recommends reading at thecricket.com.
