It’s time to announce a new novel.
(Sorry, did you want a regular post? Come back next week.)
A Decent World is the story of Summer Dawidowitz, who’s spent the past year caring for her grandmother, Josie — a lifelong Communist, a dedicated teacher, and the founder of an organization that tutors schoolchildren. When Josie dies, everything that seemed solid in Summer’s life comes into question. What sort of relationship will she have with the mother who abandoned her? Will she meet with Josie’s brother, who Josie exiled from the family? Does she really want to go back to the non-monogamous household she was part of before she moved in to take care of Josie? And finally, does she still believe a small, committed group of citizens can change the world, and if so, how?
A Decent World is about grief, family, and love. It asks the broadest of questions about the form of society we live in. It will be in UK bookstores from June 15 or can be ordered now, in the UK or abroad, from Waterstones, Swift Press, or–inevitably–those folks I work hard to avoid, Amazon.
Notes from the U.K. 
Well I loved Other People Manage, so this will have to be done too.
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Ha! Gotcha hooked.
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Congrats, Ellen!
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Thanks, Mick. I’ve got my fingers crossed for this one. Not that it helps but it gives me the illusion that I have some impact on what happens next.
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Very pleased to learn this book will be published. I still remember it vividly from the draft you shared several years ago.
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If it managed to stay with you, that’s a good sign.
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Congratulations, Ellen!
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Thanks, Laura. Much appreciated.
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Good job ! Will it get the attention of Harry’s tome ?
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Oddly enough, I don’t think it will. I was born into the wrong family–although believe me, I wouldn’t trade.
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Wow. Do do you find the time, Ellen? I am very impressed. Well done.
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Well, it helps that I started this one long ago and it was 98% finished before the last one came out.
I shouldn’t admit that, should I?
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Congratulations! It sounds excellent:-)
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Thanks. We can’t any of us judge our own work, but in spite of that, I do think it’s good.
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Wow. You’ve been busy. Congratulations!
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Confession: It was 98% written before the last one came out. Or 90%. Or, well, mostly. It needed work, but I had a massive head start.
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Congrats. You meant “A brave old world”, right? 😉
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Um, not exactly.
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PS. Don’t you hate it when people start messing with your title even before page 1?
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Titles are smoke. The first thing a publisher does after accepting a book is suggest a different title. This one started out as Everything That Used to Be Solid.
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Infinitely better. I like it.
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I do too, but (see above, or below, or somewhere) the appeal’s niche, I think.
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PS, since they don’t write, they have to do something, right? Change the title.
Movie distributors are the worst. They will translate the title so the local population can understand it… 😬
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I’m usually happy to be cynical, but it’s not a muscle-flexing exercise–at least not usually. Titles are a commercial decision: What’s going to grab people’s imaginations when they’re looking at half a dozen books and they’re only going to buy one? I loved my original title, and still do, but the appeal is strictly niche. And (in a slightly different form) it’s the title of a different book as well. Once I argued for my original title (The Divorce Diet) and won. We went through dozens of other possibilities and ended up coming back to the original. Publishing’s a strange old business.
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I like cynical… 😉
But I understand your point.
When I wrote papers for our Market research Congress, I took particular care with the title and the first slide. You have an audience of 300+. Includes clients, competitors. You have to catch the public in the first second.
Book title does that…
Have a nice week-end Ellen. 🙏🏻
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Thanks. And you.
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