Watch That iPad -- Don't Break the Galassi! FSG To Solve Bookish 'Weird Spot'

by Nate Freeman

Last night publishing giant Farrar, Straus and Giroux hosted people at Lolita, on the Lower East Side, to celebrate the launch of its new monthly online newsletter, Work In Progress. Lolita is small and black, and it intimates nighttime even when the day is still going strong outside. A hung-up canvas has the words “Life is Art” painted over a metropolitan landscape; the guests drank an inordinate amount of rosé. Ryan Chapman-an online marketing manager at FSG and the guy spearheading the new venture-was in the back, toying around on an iPad. His tie was marked by a nifty clip, and he had on thick-rimmed glasses.

The FSG site had just gone live a hours earlier. “What if,” Ryan said, setting down the iPad in favor of his beer, “we came up with our own hybrid-it’s not a blog, it’s not a magazine. It’s about both the 50 years of FSG’s past and the really fucking good books coming out now.”

To illustrate the past-present dynamic, Chapman handed over the iPad, which had a yellowed typewritten letter from 1963 displayed on its screen. It was a distribution list sent from FSG to a fair smattering of the world’s greatest writers-Auden, Capote, Nabokov, Paley-trying to secure a blurb for the debut novel by the then-unknown Susan Sontag.

Ryan has pulled that up from The Archives section of Work in Progress, where FSG will scour its vaults and cabinets of literary miscellany and post the gems in the form of jpegs.

“Books are in a weird spot,” Ryan said. “We do this long enough, we can say, ‘Hey, we have this debut writer….’ That’s the goal.”

This month for the site, FSG’s president and publisher Jonathan Galassi “virtually” interviewed Jeffrey Eugenides (via IM? Skype?), who talked about his next novel-”A college love story? Maybe.”-and joked about naming his son after his social security number.

“I was really very taken with it,” Mark Krotov said, tipping back the last of his beer. Mark Krotov and Chantal Clarke co-produce the FSG Reading Series at Russian Samovar. “It was charming! To get that comfort out of Eugenides is a really cool thing.”

Paris Review editor Lorin Stein had come in some time ago, toting a Paris Review bag and wearing a mild-colored button-front shirt and that particular cut of pant-leg-not cropped, but high enough to reveal a few inches of skin at the ankles. He went for the bar.

He was later found perched on the armrest of a couch, chatting with FSG editor-in-chief Eric Chinski. He had a drink that was down to just frayed innards of a cocktail wedge. He said he enjoyed the The Snuck Wars between his publication and this one. Though he’s no longer running books at FSG, Lorin still comes to functions, Mark said, and is much loved in these parts.

“It’s not about plugging books, it’s not about FSG-it’s just about the writers,” Chinski said, of their project. “It’s not supposed to be a press release. I still think people think of these publishing companies as these opaque machines that don’t really care about people, so it’s a great way to start a conversation.”

And, you know: everyone really is on the Internet now, at last! The Paris Review Daily is a good example of a venerable institution jumping face-first onto the Internet. Why has the “literary world” kept itself so insulated, while in the real world, we mix-why, yes, look, here’s Details nightlife columnist (and blogger!) Molly Young!

At home later that night, in a non-iPad situation and with a comfortable buzz from the free drinks, I checked out Work in Progress properly. I like it. I’ll probably read it again. But not anytime too soon. The next new content won’t get posted for another month.