Soft Skull Publishers inform us that after a series of delays, Douglas A. Martin's book "Branwell" (and links therein) is finally available. It is now available for sale pretty much everywhere, although, in order to give reviewers the time to write and file reviews and such, the official publication date is January 21st. Douglas will be doing readings in New York and Minneapolis, and we’ll keep you updated with any more.
Another possible Christmas present!
EDIT: The publishers have contacted us with further info on the readings:
Here's a link with info on the New York reading at Coliseum Books on January 16 at 6:30 pm.
And here are the details for at least two other readings:
EVENT: Book discussion, reading & signing on Thursday, Jan 19th at 7:30 PM
Query Booksellers
520 East Hennepin
Minneapolis, MN 55414
EVENT: Book discussion, reading & signing on Saturday, Jan 21st at 7:30 PM
Magers & Quinn Booksellers
3038 Hennepin Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55408
The publishers also forwarded us a review from Publisher's Weekly:
In this mannered, tortuous life of Charlotte Bronte's younger brother, Branwell, novelist Martin (Outline of My Lover) offers a tender, tragic portrayal of a doomed artist and homosexual avant la lettre . In Martin's marvelous free and direct telling, Branwell, as the sole son among many
daughters (only Charlotte, Emily and Anne survived childhood) is accorded privileges they are not, such as special home schooling by their strict father, curate of provincial Haworth. Branwell also lords over the set of toy soldiers the siblings use in elaborate play wars, creating vast
civilizations in poems and plays. The early deaths of their mother and sisters Maria and Elizabeth prove shattering for Branwell, on whose fragile shoulders the great hopes of the house rest. Sent off alone to London to gain admittance to the Royal Academy, he falls continually in his family's esteem, becoming a local drunkard and apprentice to the secretly homosexual
freemason society; a last chance at gainful employment, as tutor to a boy in Thorp Green, ends in a scandalous dismissal, and Branwell descends irretrievably into a drug-induced, punishing state of monomania. Though slender, this volume's beautiful declarative sentences are perfectly fitted to this famously imaginative, headstrong family; they bring Branwell Bronte's world to light.
Even if we are told that the explicitness of the homosexual theme has been overstated, we still feel the need to highlight that this book is fiction and by no means is intended as a scholarly biography. Just saying :)
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