On the Dust Jacket, to O or
Not to O
By
MONICA CORCORAN
''THE CORRECTIONS,'' the
highly praised novel by Jonathan Franzen that is No. 1 on many best-seller
lists, has an image problem with some readers. The problem is small, about the
size of a silver dollar, but glaring: in the middle of the book's cover is a
yellow ''O'' enclosing the words ''Oprah's Book Club,'' a seal of approval for
bibliophobic times.
Oprah Winfrey endorsed
''The Corrections'' late last month, the most recent of the 45 titles she has
chosen for her televised book club, which publishers and authors welcome as the
most potent marketing send-off in the business.
But to some bookworms, it
is a scarlet O. ''A young woman came in here yesterday and made me search for a
copy of 'The Corrections' without the Oprah logo,'' said Keith McEvoy, manager
of the Shakespeare & Company bookstore in the West Village. ''I couldn't
find one, and she left in a huff to buy it somewhere else.''
Denise Bonis, manager of
Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, told a similar tale. ''The
people coming in for 'The Corrections' look kind of crushed when they see it's
an Oprah book,'' she said. ''We will special-order it for them without the
stamp if we can.''
Both managers said many
readers react similarly to novels rereleased after a film adaptation. ''Most
people want the original copy of 'The English Patient,' not the one with Ralph
Fiennes's face on the cover,'' Mr. McEvoy said.
What seems to irk some
readers about the Oprah endorsement is the implication that they are plowing
through the same book as the vast daytime viewership for Ms. Winfrey's show.
''It makes me feel
mainstream to be reading an Oprah book,'' conceded Maria Grasso, a television
executive with the WB network in Burbank, Calif. ''I don't want people to think
that I have no idea about literature or that I sit home and watch TV all day.''
Last summer, Ms. Grasso
went so far as to rip an Oprah's Book Club logo from the upper right hand
corner of ''House of Sand and Fog'' by Andre Dubus III, a paperback she
borrowed from a friend.
Defacement like that won't
work with ''The Corrections.'' The Oprah seal is centered on the dust jacket,
like a bull's-eye. According to the book's publisher, Farrar, Straus &
Giroux, the design was an aesthetic accommodation of the logo made by both the
art director and the author.
''I would have been happier
if it could have been a sticker, but only because I am uneasy with advertising
on the front of a hardcover,'' Mr. Franzen said. ''I don't understand the label
snobbery.''
In fact, Ms. Winfrey has
largely endorsed the type of novels critics praise, not commercial fiction.
From Wally Lamb to Sue Miller to Isabel Allende, she has won huge new
readerships for midlist or obscure authors. Ashbel Green, a vice president and
senior editor at Knopf, who edited Ernest J. Gaines's ''Lesson Before Dying,''
a 1997 Oprah pick, said: ''I don't think she has picked a bad book yet. Every
one of her selections is worthwhile and enjoyable.'' Mr. Green compared her
choices to reader-friendly books of the 19th century by writers like Dickens
and Thackeray.
Farrar, Straus published
90,000 copies of ''The Corrections'' before Ms. Winfrey's nod. Afterward, it
rushed back to print 680,000 more; 500,000 of those were directly attributable
to Ms. Winfrey's endorsement, said Laurie Brown, vice president for marketing at
Farrar, Straus.
Jeff Seroy, the publicity
director at the house, said dust jackets without the Oprah logo would probably
be printed ''as long as there is a demand for that edition.''
Recently the book was named
a National Book Award finalist. ''So that's another logo to consider,'' Ms.
Brown said.
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