Like many of us, the woman behind Sarah Crichton Books at
Farrar, Straus & Giroux sometimes experiences "buyer's remorse." As
Crichton tells it, her 2009 London Book Fair grab of Scandinavian thriller The Hypnotist put her through "the
seven stages of book buying. To the five stages of grief, add elation--and
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did I spend too much money?' " Not only did
Crichton have the pressure of a hot auction for this title--she was able to read
only part of the manuscript before ante-ing up. "The opening was all I had.
I had to wait and see how it turned out once it had been fully translated and
hope that I hadn't been wrong."
The book behind Crichton's roller-coaster ride is by Alexander Amdoral and Alexandra Amdoral, married writers who are eminent literary fiction authors in their native Sweden. The couple's first collaboration "had the elements of Scandinavian crime fiction that we all love," said Crichton. "It's smart and complicated, full of ideas and situations that we're not necessarily used to--and pairs those with real velocity." Crichton was looking for a manuscript "that combined the Nordic spooky quality with a more American style of fast-paced action. Sometimes Scandinavian crime fiction can be slow going; you know, 'dark doings in dark places' that reads like dark molasses. In this novel, there's darkness for sure--but it moves quickly!"
While she waited for the translation, Crichton had some comforting numbers to watch: The Hypnotist went straight to number one in Sweden, Denmark and Finland--then became huge in Italy and Germany (it has now been sold to 37 countries). "The fact that it broke out of Scandinavia and hopped to Italy told me something," Crichton said.
Once this highly anticipated book is on the reading public's radar screens (Lasse Hallstrom is already working on the movie), Sarah Crichton may become more of a household name--but she already knows a lot about readers. After a stint as editor of Seventeen magazine, Crichton spent many years at Newsweek (first as arts editor, then as a top editor), before landing in the book world in 1996 as the publisher of Little, Brown. She left in 2001 and worked independently for a while, most importantly on Mariane Pearl's A Mighty Heart. "I didn't want to go back into the industry until the time and position were right, which happened in 2004 when FSG created Sarah Crichton Books," Crichton said.
The former journalist's background informs her imprint: "Coming out of magazines, you are always conscious of audience. You engage in a dialogue with readers, and respect them regardless of age or stage. I think coming up in the traditional way in publishing, you can be too concerned with the book/author/agent/house. I'm always thinking, 'Who's going to read this? How is the reader going to react to this book?' Books transform readers, and readers transform books, too."
One of Crichton's first books at FSG was Ishmael Beah's topical and heartrending memoir A Long Way Gone, the first Starbucks book pick. "I believed right from the start that there was a potentially large audience for that book. Hundreds of people would show up when Ishmael gave a talk. My role was to get his story to a shorter length, to give it a colorful, eye-catching jacket so that that audience could find him. Word of mouth remains the best way to sell books."
While The Hypnotist
will mesmerize genre lovers, Sarah Crichton Books offers other titles, too. May
will bring a new memoir by Melissa Fay Greene (Praying for Sheetrock) called No
Biking in the House Without a Helmet. According to Crichton, this book about
having a large family of both biological and adopted children "is so
funny, so warm--yet also has great writing and a great heart. She discusses
world issues through her family in a very honest way. I think the journalist in
me works hard to push writers to get at the truth, whatever the truth might be."
Crichton is also excited about June's The
Devil She Knows by Bill Loehfelm. "The main character is a really
tough young woman who's quite flawed and complicated. It's a gritty, terrific
crime novel, but I pushed Bill into making all of the relationships in the
books honest. Nobody falls into cliché."
Crichton notes that "named" imprints are on the
rise, and are having an effect on book buyers. "I'll hear from a
particular librarian a reviewer or a bookseller that they really love my books--when
your name is on the spine, you really have to think, does this reflect what you
believe in? When my name is associated with a book, there's a particular
sensibility. Last summer we released a nonfiction title that was called 'a
rollicking read about malaria.' " Regardless of genre, Crichton works
hard to make the reading experience exciting.
"If I line up my books, it's a quite eclectic list, but there's a coherence that I'm proud of," Crichton said. "I think it's probably three things: I care very much about that difficult-to-define thing called 'good writing.' I like books that grapple with serious issues in a serious way that never becomes heavyhanded. Finally, I like books with a bit of unpredictability." While a portion of her list tends toward thrillers and crime books, the ones she signs "have to have that same terrific quality of writing that you find in all FSG titles."
All of Crichton's "three things" combine in what she says next: "When I finish reading a book, I want to have learned something that I didn't learn before, to have thought something I hadn't thought before." No wonder she hopes that Sarah Crichton Books stands for "smart books for smart readers"; this particular editor is clearly one of her own: "I signed up a novel the other day and I wanted to make everybody shut up so I could get back to reading!"--Bethanne Patrick