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| Alan Hruska | |
Alan J. Hruska, co-founder of Soho Press, died March 29. He was 88. In 1986, together with his wife, Laura Hruska, and former Dial Press editor Juris Jurjevics, he founded the independent, award-winning book publishing company that remains a family business.
Bronwen Hruska, his daughter, has served as Soho's publisher for more than a decade, "growing the revenue and staff of the well-respected house more than three-fold and securing its reputation as a preeminent midsized independent press," the company noted.
In addition to his 44-year legal career at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and his unwavering support of Soho, Hruska was an author, playwright and film director. His first novel, Borrowed Time, was published in 1985 and, beginning with Wrong Man Running in 2011, he published a series of critically well-received legal thrillers, including Pardon the Ravens (2015); It Happened at Two in the Morning (2017); and The Inglorious Arts (2019).
Soho Press "made its reputation by welcoming unsolicited manuscripts from little-known writers. Its ambitions, Mr. Jurjevics said, were 'not to have a certain percentage of growth a year and not to be bought by anybody,' " the New York Times reported, noting that the publisher "has specialized in literary fiction and memoirs with a backlist that includes books by Jake Arnott, Edwidge Danticat, John L'Heureux, Delores Phillips, Sue Townsend and Jacqueline Winspear." The company also includes the Soho Teen and Soho Crime imprints.
Hruska wrote and directed the film Nola, which opened at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2003. Other films include The Warrior Class and The Man on Her Mind. He made his theatrical debut directing an Off Broadway revival of Waiting for Godot in 2005. Ten years later, his play Laugh It Up, Stare It Down was produced at the Cherry Lane Theater.
A memorial for Hruska will be held in June, with details to be announced.