By now you’ve no doubt heard that Engine Books will release the paperback and ebook editions of Debra Monroe’s novel Shambles and her memoir On the Outskirts of Normal this June. I’ve been a fan of Debra’s work for many years, and can’t tell you how privileged I feel to be working with her.
On the Outskirts of Normal garnered ridiculously great reviews and press when SMU released the hardcover last summer, for good reason. It’s honest, engaging, and written in the loveliest sentences, images, and paragraphs you can imagine. Here’s a sample of the attention it earned:
The Year’s Best Reading in 2010: A Top Ten List Selection.Barnes and Noble.
Best Southern Books of 2010. Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
2010 Best Books. San Antonio Express-News.
REQUIRED READING: In a setting where working mothers are rare, novelist and single mom Debra Monroe’s adoption of a black baby puts her On the Outskirts of Nomal…
—Vanity Fair
PICKS: Should a middle-aged white woman with a history of failed relationships try to raise a black baby in small-town Texas? Author Monroe proves she’s got the right stuff, even if she can’t handle her adopted daughter’s Afro (“If you’re white, black hair care is a secret”). Candid about men, mothering, racism, and her own flaws, she shows that it’s possible to create something beautiful out of a tattered past.
—People magazine
OUR PICKS: On the Outskirts of Normal. Debra Monroe writes about the complications, and gifts, of transracial adoption.
—Salon.com
RECOMMENDED READING: This unsentimental memoir about a white woman who adopts a black baby in small town Texas.
—O: the Oprah Magazine, The Reading Room.
If On the Outskirts of Normal were a country song, Lucinda Williams would sing it. In this graceful, disquieting and intensely felt acccount, Monroe offers the story of how she became the mother she needed to be—not to Marie, who in Monroe always had a fine mother, but for herself, so she could finally have and keep what she deserved.
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monroe doesn’t waste time justifying her family to others—her care and clear-eyed focus on her daughter make their own argument. It’s absolutely clear this is the life she chose. “The sprawling mess of life is why we need stories,” she writes, “a fleeting sense of order so we return to life with the unproven but irresistible conviction our mistakes and emergencies matter.”
—Amy Benfer, Barnes & Noble Review
And that’s just for starters.
As you can imagine, nobody in their right mind would pass up the opportunity to acquire the paperback rights to this book. Even a fiction press. Still, it seems worth explaining why an editor who doesn’t publish nonfiction is publishing nonfiction. The answer is simple: On the Outskirts of Normal doesn’t require editing. I hope that I offer fiction writers clear, thoughtful, useful editing so that when I put their work out into the world, it’s the very best it can be. I don’t have the skills to edit nonfiction in the same way. But since this beautiful book has already been thoroughly edited, polished, and let out into the world, I’d be a fool not to take this opportunity.
So, yeah. Engine Books is a fiction press. With the good sense to know that when a memoir this fabulous comes along, you grab it, rules be damned.
Sounds like very wise logic, Victoria. She’s a great writer, it’s a great book, and it was edited by one of the best in Kathryn Lang. Looking forward to these.