Ecco To Publish Tom Robbins' New Novel 'B' Is for Beer This Fall
Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, will publish a new novel this fall by Tom Robbins called B is For Beer.
According to HarperCollins executive editor David Hirshey, who is editing the book, it is about 100 pages long, and takes the form of a "hallucinogenic hymn to beer, children, and the cosmic mysteries that sustain us all."
Mr. Robbins, author of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, has not written a novel since 2003's Villa Incognito, and B is for Beer will be his first since leaving Bantam Books, his publisher of almost 30 years.
Mr. Hirshey worked closely with Mr. Robbins as his editor at Esquire from 1985 until 1995, but had fallen out of touch with him in recent years. In fact, Mr. Hirshey said, he had not spoken to Mr. Robbins in a decade and had not been able to track down his contact information, when he got a phone call from him out of the blue about a week before Christmas.
"He calls up and tells me that he's left Bantam Books and he has something that he thought I might enjoy reading," Mr. Hirshey said. 'And then he says, 'Do you know anybody at Ecco? Two of my greatest heroes are Leonard Cohen and Charles Bukowski and I know that they're both published by Ecco. It would make me really happy to be part of that pantheon.'"
Mr. Hirshey called Ecco editor-in-chief Daniel Halpern and told him about the book, and Mr. Halpern agreed immediately to publish it.
This is GREAT NEWS!!!
Let us all raise our glasses high--higher than the Blue Moon--to the beloved and esteemed Mr. Robbins!
When will this frothy gem be on the shelves?
Bottoms up!
One hundred pages is NOT a novel, but I bet they'll still charge novel prices! This does not make me happy, but I'll buy it, I'll read it, cuz it's Tom.....
I am excited to hear of this latest tidbit. To me that is what Tom's works are. Delicious, delightful adventures on the tastebuds of my mind. Like Switters reveling in a plate of red-eye gravy, I crave the flavor of his expressions. And my creative mind sops the psychedelic stew he serves us like a granny made biscuit.
I treasure his works, and colorful sojourns he has shared with us.
Thank you Tom for continuing to serve us your sumptuous stews.
We are blessed and grateful.
Peace and blessings,
Donibexie
so little, so late.
lazy sod, i envy your indolence.
His new book is supposedly a children's book. He published the beginning of it in the Seattlepi in May/2007.
Here is the link: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/317083_writer25.html
Though it's not really a novel, I'm excited.
100 pages aint much to show for 5 yrs wait.
Yes, I am a fan.... BUT this bit of news confirms my fears that that Mr. Robbins prefers to milk his niche than feed his herds...
His 8 novels are an obvious testament to his abundance of creative intellect.... but thats 8 in 30 years...
Does he have another one in him? Something meaty and dripping... before he careens into the 'bouqet'?
Who knows, maybe he'll keep writing well into the AFTRlife leaving us hoping to go to hell.
possibly 8 of the most lusty and poetic novels in 30 years speaks volumns about the exertion it takes to create such masterpieces. He is not your average crank-them-out-for-the-summer-paperback-reader-genre.
patience and adoration is all that are expected of us. Let us be pray
Well, I certainly think Mr. Robbins is a kick-ass writer, but I get the feeling that he's just pulling our leg with this one. I won't buy this one blindly like I have the rest of his works. Personally, I was a little disappointed with Wild Ducks...
I really want Tom to write his magnum opus. And, a hundred page titter on beer? Well, I hope that ain't it. However, I'm still hoping to be pleasantly surprised.
While i agree with most of the comments in regards to the length and subject of the book, i dont even care
no author has ever written a literary work that has enchanted me as much as tom robbins has, who better to write a children's book about beer?
i hope that he does write a nice long epic someday, although i'm not holding my breath. anyway its not like i dont have 8 fantastic novels to reread and enjoy again!
Considering Tom is a septuagenarian, I am surprised to see how many are willing to whip him for more. I think the composite of his writing is the "magnum opus" and that it is indicative of the current consumer mentality to expect artists to simply squeeze out one masterpiece after another, as if it didn't take such hard work.
As for "milking his niche", I think this is completely off the mark, as the fact that his regular publisher wouldn't handle this book indicates that he is NOT simply banking on the sameness and 'safe-ness' of his core audience, but instead he is making a leap further out on the edges of conventional acceptance.
His last book of collected early writings was not a put-off, but instead a way to capture some of the feeling that catapulted him into the arms of so many readers in the first place. After all, the longevity of his books have continually declined since Cowgirls, as those book-buyers who had once challenged the boundaries of the known world have degenerated from erogenous existentialists to in-vitro traditionalists. If Another Roadside Attraction had been printed today, would it have been received with as much delight?
I expect "B is for Beer" to rattle the cages of the aging boomers who have gone soft as their retirement investments have gone hard. As those who once regarded smoking pot as harmless have allowed their votes to be cast for those who would punish innocent experimentation, so goes our freedom to explore many aspects of reality. Robbins is just as much a doctrine outlaw as before.
The "hobby of privating" ideas, beliefs, books, that seem to speak in our inner world, the need we have to fit and identify our existing wandering, or not, being with figures that capture our thoughts and consequently admiration is inescapable like a river that keeps retaining his flow regardless of time, conditions and viewers.
Creativity that emerges from pain and self-realizing offers relief to writer and readers.
Robbins suggested the happy childhood as key situation in a previous work of his.
A new story probably returns back to give answers he hadn't come to then.
A book of companion, a book to enjoy, a book to relax , to fill flowing time, to consume judging merely from quantity, to participate to your beloved writer's work is an answer?
Physical growing up maybe makes our thought more compressed and our mysteries more simply-conceived.
Expecting just to see how you invent your authenticity Mr Robbins,
Nancy.
The "hobby of privating" ideas, beliefs, books, that seem to speak in our inner world, the need we have to fit and identify our existing wandering, or not, being with figures that capture our thoughts and consequently admiration is inescapable like a river that keeps retaining his flow regardless of time, conditions and viewers.
Creativity that emerges from pain and self-realizing offers relief to writer and readers.
Robbins suggested the happy childhood as key situation in a previous work of his.
A new story probably returns back to give answers he hadn't come to then.
A book of companion, a book to enjoy, a book to relax , to fill flowing time, to consume judging merely from quantity, to participate to your beloved writer's work is an answer?
Physical growing up maybe makes our thought more compressed and our mysteries more simply-conceived.
Expecting just to see how you invent your authenticity Mr Robbins,
Nancy.
I have enjoyed some of Tom Robbins' works, "Villa Incognito" not one of them because of the rushed-to-publication, post-9/11-shocked feel of the writing. Just read the Seattle PI interview and excerpt of "'B' Is For Beer." I wish Tom luck with the book and hope young people will discover a worldly perspective from a discussion of a cheap fermented, fizzy drink. I would have chosen a less patronizing tone for the book, myself, but then I have yet to achieve the literary track record of Mr. Robbins.
YAY. thats all i can think. i know i should be disappointed that this book will not be longer, but somehow i don't care. this is a wonderful surprise.
This is only mildly interesting. As much as I love the man and his works, a one hundred page ramble is by no means a novel. I've lost hope for any new real work from Mr. Robbins. At 71 I guess he just doesn't have it in him. The man is just not in the same league with writers such as Vonnegut, as I once imagined.
i'm still reading the tarot in timbuktu...good to hear of a turn in the wheel...lovers awaken!!
Unless you've written 8 damn good novels yourself, I don't think there's any room for kvetching here.
I stopped reading Robbins after Stilllife, but turned a friend on to him recently, and now have to catch up.
It takes a lot of effort to write such multi-level high craft as Robbins produces -- I wouldn't begrudge him something slighter, as it's still sure to be filled with his intelligence and wit.
Great Isis, I give thanks for whatever Tom gives! I will cherish this new work as I do all the others!
Yours truely,
Linda...the tatooed, red-headed Egyptian, from Seattle
I think all of us winkin-beet-eatin' Robbins' fans will toast to Pan in thanks to another, albeit short, seduction into Tom's secret little world. Cheers, Tom. We love you.
Agghh! Why do people persist in comparing writers and musicians. Of course Robbins is no Vonnegut. Vonnegut was a marvelous writer who wrote dark satire, and he did it with very few three dimesnsional characters (if any!). Robbins, on the other hand, writes stories of spiritual hope and enlightenment. And all of his main characters (and even many of the secondary characters) are fully developed 3D players, rich with personality--such that they come alive in our imaginations.
And I applaud Tom for not regurgitating a novel every two years like some hack writers. I can't believe some of the crap that makes it onto the bookshelves these days. I've read how Tom works every sentence until it is perfect. THAT is his craft. And that is how he will forever be remembered. And if he ever stumbles into Plymouth, MI, I would gladly buy him a beer for a 100-page novel!
Like many of you, I have spent the last 15 years reading and rereading Tom Robbins' novels. I am not yet full. Are there more real, picaresque, mind-altering, outrageously brilliant, and truth baring novels left in him? I hope "Ducks" and "Beer" are just snacks to help us stick it out until the next feast arrives. "People of zee world, relax!"
I am dancing to this news, skinny legs and all, of course.
There's joy in Bandaloopville !!
Why such scrutiny?
A one hundred page novel could systematically sabotage the entire mind set of kazillions of forlorn and begrudging souls. To quote a cliche: A fire only needs a spark.
Hey, it worked for Engles and Marx...i'm not saying the outcomes were always brilliant, but it did inspire; and is that not any artists hope?
Anyway, the kids could so with knowing that B is for Beer, it may lead them to better choices in the future...especially if a writer as multidimensional as Mr.Robbins is at the helm.
Have faith. What is there to lose, other than a few pesos?
The most disappointing part of this news, if you ask me, is that Robbins has signed for a News Corporation company. There aren't many artists left whom one would be surprised to see pocketing the Rupert Murdoch dollar, but I though Robbins was one of 'em...
The moon awaits.
huh. Kids and beer. Oh yeah, the presidential election took the place of a new TR novel.
Does anyone know WHEN this jewel will be available??
April 21st, 2009. The fun is just beginning.
... I can hear My Wahoo welling ...