Galley Girl: 'Gone With the Wind' Revisited

Note: Galley Girl is on vacation. She will return in two weeks. In the meantime, please enjoy last week's column, below, or browse her columns from previous weeks by clicking here.

SCARLETT FEVER:
Alice Randall was 12 years old when she first read "Gone with the Wind." She was deeply perplexed. "There was something in the book that attracted and repelled me," she told us last week at a small luncheon at Olive's, thrown by her publisher, Houghton Mifflin. "Where were the mulattos on Tara? Where were the people in my family history?" Randall, 41, is of mixed-race ancestry, and has been told that her great-great-grandfather was Confederate general Edmund Pettus. She decided to write a novel, her first, as the black rejoinder to "Gone With the Wind." Says Randall, "I decided in some way to redeem the text." The result is "The Wind Done Gone," which will be published on June 6. In order to go on her six-city author tour, Randall will be taking time off from her family, and her career as a successful country music writer in Nashville. But she believes in her project. "The South is central to the American imagination," she says with conviction. "In the South, with this terrible atrocity named slavery, freedom became more articulated."

POOR SPORT:
Publishers Weekly's reviews are always anonymous. They are meant to reflect the magazine's view of the book, not just those of one individual reviewer, and to that end, every review passes through a number of hands. Those hands were questioned recently when the magazine published a negative review of an upcoming book, "We're So Famous," by Jaime Clarke (Bloomsbury USA; April). "It's a seriously weak book," Jeff Zaleski, the influential PW editor in charge of reviews, says candidly. Well, Mr. Clarke wasn't too happy with that verdict. Says Zaleski "He e-mailed probably three dozen people griping about the tone of the review and then offered $1,000 from his advance to anyone who would supply him with the name of the reviewer — and if that's not a veiled threat, I don't know what is." Zaleski only reluctantly talked with us about what had happened, explaining, "I hate to give this guy any publicity of any sort but unfortunately, in addition to e-mailing nearly everyone at PW, he e-mailed Inside.com, Salon.com and the New York Times." We can't wait to see the PW review for Clarke's NEXT book.

EAT YOUR WORDS:
We've been invited to plenty of publishing luncheons, but this is a first. On Sunday, April 1st, from 4 to 7 p.m., New York's Center for Book Arts will participate in "Eat Your Words: The 2nd International Edible Book Tea." According to our host, "This special event will be celebrated worldwide at various book arts centers, schools and galleries, uniting bibliophiles, book artists and food lovers. The festival will be held simultaneously in Chicago, Iowa City, Los Angeles, Paris, San Diego, St. Paul, Victoria (Australia) and several other cities. Tea will be served from 4 to 5 p.m., after which the books will be auctioned off and devoured on the premises.

"During the Tea, the Center's gallery space will feature an exhibit of the artist's creative concoctions before they're consumed. Edible books from last year's even included sheets of paper-thin seaweed sewn into Japanese-style books, hand-bound slices of ham and cheese, gingerbread books and even 'booklava,' complete with pages made from phylo dough." For more to chew on, go to centerforbookarts.org.

FINE CHINA:
Move over, Amy Tan. PW swoons over "Troublemaker and Other Saints" by Christina Chiu (Putnam; March 5), giving it a starred review. "Advance praise is already pouring in for this impressive collection," says PW. "Likely will be one of the most talked-about literary debuts of the year." According to PW, "Tragedy and epiphany strike with equal force in this collection of 11 related short stories featuring the Chinese-American members of an extended network of family, friends, lovers and neighbors combating their private and public shames and struggling to find a place to call home... In sharp, witty, heartbreaking prose, Chiu communicates the Asian-American experience as adeptly and freshly as Sherman Alexie describes the Native American experience, or Junot Diaz defines Latino life in the United States."

ANIMAL HOUSE:

Samantha Glen loves animals. REALLY loves animals. "At the moment, I just have one dog and two cats," she says apologetically. "But I've had chickens and six dogs, 12 cats, ducks and geese." She rescues animals and writes a local newspaper column called "Animal Talk." The British-born author (now an American citizen) has even co-written two books about animals, "Out of Harm's Way: The Extraordinary True Story of One Woman's Lifelong Devotion to Animal Rescue" and "Search and Rescue." So when the opportunity came along to write a book about the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary (bestfriends.org) in Kanab, Utah, Glen was ready to rock and roll. The sanctuary, the nation's largest no-kill refuge for abused and abandoned animals, is located on 350 acres of Angel Canyon, providing a home for 1,800 animals.

The result is "Best Friends: The True Story of the World's Most Beloved Animal Sanctuary," with an introduction by Mary Tyler Moore (Kensington). Writing the book required two years of commuting from Lake Tahoe, where she, her husband and their four-legged family live. "I find a comfort and a joy in animals on a level I don't experience anywhere else," says Glen. "I'm fascinated by the millions of people who have animals, who feel the same way, and what they'll do for the animals." Plus, she says, "Writing a book is hard work. I've got to be passionate about something. I can't get passionate about a diet book, you know." Best Friends is the kind of place a vegetarian writer can love, says Glen. "They mostly take animals that nobody else wants. You know, the ones that are ugly, the ones that only have three legs. It's obvious the animals are happy. This is no place where animals are in cages."

OVERSEAS SENATOR:
If Hillary Clinton runs through that $8 million she's getting for her memoir, she won't have to worry. "Publishing Trends," an industry newsletter, reports: "Heard on the street (though no one was confirming anything at press time): Hillary Clinton's book was going to Headline UK for $1.3 million, to Fayard in France for $400,000 and deals were completed in Germany and Finland, with Holland still being negotiated." How much do you suppose Brother Hugh will get for his?

CHAD CITY SHOWDOWN:
Cast your ballot for the best post-election roundup:

On February 23, Times Books will publish "36 Days: The Complete Chronicle of the 2000 Presidential Election Crisis," by a team of political correspondents at the NYT (paperback original), with an introduction by presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. Says the publisher, "With the unrivaled depth and breadth of the NYT's coverage of the news behind it, '36 Days' will stand as the chronicle of record of this extraordinary moment in American history."

In March, Public Affairs will publish "Deadlock: The Inside Story of America's Closest Election" (hardcover). The book, "a seamless narrative written by David Von Drehle, one of the paper's most accomplished political writers," will be based on new reporting from Washington, Florida, and Texas by the political team of the Washington Post. "Not a rough draft, but history itself — rich, detailed, nuanced and groundbreaking," says the publisher.