Jim Crace

After reading reviews of Jim Crace's intriguing new novel The Pesthouse in Bookforum, the NYT and the Chicago Tribune, the book is now officially on my to-read list. Given all the hype surrounding Cormac McCarthy's The Road, it will be interesting to see how much attention Crace's own post-apocalypse dystopian tale enjoys.

Bookforum also passes along an interesting news tidbit (not online) involving Crace. (Apparently he already divulged this last year in the Guardian, but this is the first I've seen of it.) It seems that Amazon UK is selling a purported Crace novel, Useless America, which has not only not been published, but hasn't been written or even conceived of by Crace.

One explanation for the mysterious listing, Crace surmises, is that a few years ago, when he was contracted by Viking (he's since switched publishers) to write his next novel, he knew the first sentence would read "This used to be America," and lent it out as a working title. "Someone at Penguin [Viking's owner] couldn't type, possibly, or someone at Amazon was hard of hearing...'Used to' became 'Useless,' and amusing error...with a life of its own."

Both Crace and his publisher, Nan A. Talese, are handling this with poise and humor, collaborating with Powell's on an amusing contest. Entrants are required to submit a "fake epigraph" for this fake book, with the 75 best in terms of "style, originality, and humor" winning a copy of this (very) limited edition volume ("a blank book 'with a beautiful jacket'"). Sounds like fun -- you may submit your entry here. I know I'll be penning something suitably witty, sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek.