Europa Makes a Mark
If you ask independent booksellers to name publishers they respect, one name that surfaces is Europa Editions. They publish high-quality literary fiction, primarily European in translation, as well as original British and American work, that is both well-written and entertaining. The books are printed as paperback originals in a unique style: The covers are solid colored stock -- blue, red, yellow, orange -- with full-color graphics and titles integrated in the design. The elongated cover has flaps that fold under. The books feel and look both substantial.
The publishing house was begun in 2005 by Sandro Ferri and his wife Sandra Ozzola Ferri. Ferri -- founder of Edizioni e/o, a publisher known for its international list of authors and Mediterranean noir fiction -- began Europa Editions as a venture that would encourage a cultural exchange between nations. He brought on Kent Carroll, former editor-in-chief at Grove Press, to develop an English-language line.
Original plans called for Europa Editions to publish about 15 books a year with press runs about 10,000. Europa Editions focus on "long" sellers, as opposed to "best sellers" -- that is, books that sell several thousand copies every year, and make money over time. Half the sales come from Europa Editions' backlist, older books they published and kept in print.
American publishers once considered publishing to be an important way to keep alive the country's literary culture. Now, it's all about the bottom line. I've spoken with authors who sold 25,000 copies of a hardcover novel and were dropped by publishers because those figures were considered too low. As for backlog, there are books that are kept in print by U.S. publishers, but it's a small percentage of what they put out. Most books have a four-week shelf life after their release date. Then bookstores ship them back to the publishers in exchange for the next hot commodity.
Europa Editions operates differently. They focus on books for the intelligent, but not elite, reader. "Our readers appreciate the literary quality but also the readability of our books. We are simultaneously snobs and populists," Ferri said in an interview with Bookshop magazine. Europa markets heavily to independent bookstores, where new, unknown and undervalued writers might be given a chance.
Recent publications -- such as the novel "Zeroville," by L.A. resident Steve Erickson, and British writer Jane Gardam's story collection "The People on Privilege Hill" -- are good examples of the combination of literary quality and readability Europa Editions is known for.
Erickson's 329-page novel is broken into 454 chapters numbered in ascending then descending order. This format splices the book together like a film. Each segment is a complete unit, as compressed as flash fiction, yet moving forward with the type of narrative drive found in a traditionally plotted novel. The novel concerns a man named Vikar who arrives in Hollywood in 1969, on the eve of the Manson murders. Vikar's obsession with movies is unflagging and potentially homicidal. For instance, he has on his bald head a tattoo of Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift. When a hippie mistakes the tattoo as a scene from "Rebel Without a Cause," rather than "A Place in the Sun," Vikar brings his food tray "crashing down on the blasphemer across the table from him. He manages to catch the napkin floating down like a parachute in time to wipe his mouth." The black humor in that filmic gesture of catching the delicately floating napkin captures the tension of Erickson's story. Like a great movie, "Zeroville" sweeps us up in its narrative, then asks us to think about what it means.
Gardam's book brings us to refined, upper-crust Britain. In the title story, "The People of Privilege Hill," three ancient barristers hustle through pouring rain to attend a going-away luncheon for a Jesuit who never shows up. The language of Gardam's story is cuttingly precise. In describing the umbrellas brought by the guests to the luncheon Gardam writes, "In the conservatory trench, six or so of them seemed to stir, rubbing shoulders like impounded cattle." When the men have their journey to the house interrupted by a car cutting in front of them, Gardam writes with mirthful accuracy: "Doors were flung open and a lean girl with a cigarette in her mouth jumped out. She ground the stub under her heel, like the serpent in Eden, and began to decant two disabled elderly women."
The precision and warmth of language -- impounded cattle, decant -- will delight readers who favor such writers as P.G. Wodehouse.
Ferri once prided himself on the fact that none of his books had won awards. That has changed. Two of Europa's 2007 fiction paperback originals -- "The Lost Sailors" by Jean-Claude Izzo and "Broken Colors" by Michele Zackheim -- were named Book Sense picks by an organization of independent bookstores.
Will success spoil this independent press? In that same interview with Bookshop, Ferri, when asked what it means to be a small publisher, dismissed sales as a determining factor. "A publisher stops being a small publisher when he or she no longer has passion."
By Richard Krawiec