The Wall Street Journal recently profiled Alice Hoffman and focused on the input she has on the covers of her books. We live in a society that certainly does judge books by their covers and the art of cover design is one that is highly scrutinized from all angles (sales, design, art, appeal). Authors typically do not have a say in the covers of their books. Oftentimes they are sent a cover (possibly a few versions if they are lucky) and are told this is how their book will look. According to Nan Graham, senior vice president and publisher at Scribner, “Never in the history of the world does the author come up with the perfect cover, and certainly not the day you get the manuscript.”
In 2010, when Hoffman sent her editor the draft for her historical novel, “The Dovekeepers,” set during the siege of Masada in ancient Israel, she included a photograph by Joyce Tenneson she found while writing the book. The image, of a long-haired woman with a white bird on each shoulder, became the novel’s cover.
This week, Ms. Hoffman’s newest novel, “The Museum of Extraordinary Things,” was published with another cover she proposed. The glowing image is of a creature that appears part-fish, part-fairy, with a long tail, wings and the suggestion of a human torso. Ms. Hoffman found it in a coffee-table book while browsing a New York bookstore. “As soon as I saw it, I thought, this is the photograph I always wished I’d taken,” said Ms. Hoffman, who submitted it along with her draft. (via Wall Street Journal)
Summary of THE MUSEUM OF EXTRAORDINARY THINGS
Mesmerizing and illuminating, Alice Hoffman’s The Museum of Extraordinary Things is the story of an electric and impassioned love between two vastly different souls in New York during the volatile first decades of the twentieth century.
Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the sinister impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a Coney Island boardwalk freak show that thrills the masses. An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father’s “museum,” alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a one-hundred-year-old turtle. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River.
The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his father’s Lower East Side Orthodox community and his job as a tailor’s apprentice. When Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the suspicious mystery behind a young woman’s disappearance and ignites the heart of Coralie.
With its colorful crowds of bootleggers, heiresses, thugs, and idealists, New York itself becomes a riveting character as Hoffman weaves her trademark magic, romance, and masterful storytelling to unite Coralie and Eddie in a sizzling, tender, and moving story of young love in tumultuous times. The Museum of Extraordinary Things is Alice Hoffman at her most spellbinding.
What are your thoughts on book cover design? Do they impact your decisions? Do they play into your overall perception of a book?
