One of Skyhorse's fall books that Lyons is most excited about typifies the publisher's sometimes unusual, distinctive approach to publishing.
The book is A Table for Fortune, a 3,000-page novel that will appear in four volumes of more than 700 pages each. Pub date is October 6, and it's retailing for $199.99, from Arcade. By William T. Vollmann, author of Europe Central, which won a National Book Award in 2005, A Table for Fortune is a saga that runs from 1968 to 2019. The first two volumes center on Elliott Stevens, or Dave, "a CIA analyst whose glee at winning the Cold War is matched only by the dread that culminates in the nightmares of September 11th and the resulting War on Terror." In the third and fourth volumes, the hero is Matthew Stevens, Elliott's son, "whose efforts to escape his parents and divine the fate of his life result in homelessness, addiction, and perhaps even happiness."
Vollmann took 15 years to write the book, and Lyons calls him "a generational genius. He's done what nobody's done in a generation, which is write a book that is fascinating and interesting all the way through, that tells the story of what led to 9/11 more comprehensively than has ever been done. For me, it's a fascinating project and incredibly important book." In July, the book received a rave early review in The New York Times from Tom LeClair, who called it a "heroic, fascinating, and important work." He also estimated it takes 50 hours to read the entire tome.
Among the unusual elements of the project, Vollmann wanted to be sure of "the integrity of his work," so Skyhorse agreed to give him complete control over the book, including editing, production, and design.
That approach appealed to Vollmann since his earlier efforts to publish the book had been frustrated. He had proposed the book to his longtime Big Five publisher when it was several thousand pages long, and "they wanted him to cut it by 50%," Lyons says. Vollmann looked over the manuscript and "realized that there was another 500 pages to add to it. So not only was he unable to shorten it, but it was going to get longer, much longer."
The approach is a perfect example of how Skyhorse "is a company that thinks out of the box," Lyons says. "People come to us with books that they think nobody else would consider for all kinds of reasons."