Witty . . . delicious. Galassi—a publisher, poet and translator with decades of inside knowledge of the publishing industry—uses his background to great effect in this a slyly sophisticated roman à clef. He slips the fictitious poet Ida Perkins into the 20th century literary canon and puts her at the centre of a literary competition between publishers.” —Jane Ciabattari, BBC.com, Ten Books to Read in June
“Complex and heartbreaking . . . Galassi’s fictionalized vision of publishing, even subtracting the veneer of satire, is simultaneously romantic and problematic, [an] otherworldly amalgam of the real, the satiric and the entirely imagined . . . a Mad Men world that’s white, wealthy and male. Muse traces publishing’s trajectory from a confident, martini-lunching old boys’ club to a more enlightened industry plagued by the uncertainty brought on by a brave new world . . . It is, in some respects, a love letter for a bygone time, [without] the miserliness of that genre. At the heart of everything these people do is a profound love of literature. The novel leaps to life when we [meet] Ida Perkins, a poetry superstar. Muse reads like a memoir of sorts, told, as befits a sophisticated teller, with all the tools at his disposal—satire, a touch of postmodernism, the roman à clef, and naturally, romance.” —Alana Wilcox, National Post (Canada)
“Part satire, part fantasy, and unabashed in its affection for the world of publishing, Farrar, Straus & Giroux president and publisher Galassi's first novel is a captivating roman à clef, written with the insight and wit of a true insider. An accomplished poet, Galassi effectively deploys both his knowledge of that art form and of the business of producing books in this clever story . . . Whether it's a trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair or a dinner with the founder of an Amazon-like e-tailer, Galassi delivers realistic glimpses of pressures that loom over the traditional book business today. Equally pleasurable are his flights of fancy: a world where first editions of poetry books sell 750,000 copies and where the death of a beloved poet spurs the president to declare a national holiday; where literature occupies the center of the cultural conversation, rather than being exiled to the provinces inhabited by academics and a handful of acolytes. For all the wistfulness of its backward-looking glance, Muse is anything but a nostalgia trip. Instead, this gentle, wry novel should reinforce the belief of anyone who loves books that the survival of the world Galassi portrays is worth fighting for. A sharp and affectionate look at the contemporary publishing business.” —Harvey Freedenberg, Shelf Awareness
“Galassi’s first novel, which charts the rivalry between two Manhattan publishing houses, is packed with lively secrets and insider gossip from the world of literature." —Entertainment Weekly
“An insider's look at book publishing spins a fable of egos, literature, and commerce in which an editor’s obsession with a poet leads to the revelation of a crucial secret. Galassi is a poet and translator and, for his day job, president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. In this fiction debut, he imagines the gifted and beautiful poet Ida Perkins, cynosure of men literary and otherwise. A critics’ darling from her first collection at 18, she soon [becomes] that rarest of phenomena, a profitable poet. Her fortunate publisher is a WASP from old New England money, and his chief rival is a savvy, foulmouthed Austrian Jew who racks up more Nobels than any other house—except Farrar. The obsessive is Paul Dukach, whose first meeting with Ida brings him and the story to the ultimate collision of private person and published writing. Galassi conveys the thrill of being dazzled by literature . . . He also has fun with the language of reviewing while delivering a casual seminar on American poetry; an extended riff on the Frankfurt Book Fair bespeaks years of painful firsthand experience . . . A worthy psalm on the pre-Amazon, pre-digital days of publishing that anyone might appreciate. Galassi rates praise especially for choosing to have some knowing fun with his years in the business.” —Kirkus (starred review)
“In poet Galassi’s first novel, a book editor navigates the world of 21st-century publishing while unraveling the secrets of his lifelong hero, a poet named Ida Perkins . . . The fun of this book is watching Galassi weave his fictional characters into real literary history and put his considerable gifts as a poet to good use.” —Publishers Weekly
“Charming . . . A novel about a world that exists in memory: an industry still spoken of reverentially as a noble calling rather than a business. Its hero is a bookish young man from upstate New York who is drawn to the down-at-the heels glamour of book publishing. Muse is two parts valentine, one part satire, a loving send-up of a very specific culture. [Here] is a world where intrigue takes the form of a decades-long battle over who gets to publish a charismatic, talented and audacious poet, a writer of sensual poetry with an outsized popular appeal. A reader would not be wrong to see parallels between the characters in the book and industry legends.” —Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke, New York Observer
“A witty, elegant, tons-of-fun debut novel. Jonathan Galassi has got all the dirt on the publishing industry and he is ready to dish. But he also takes us from Union Square and a hideaway country cottage to Venice, for a love story all his own.” —Gary Shteyngart
“We know Galassi as president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, as the author of three collections of poetry, and as an icon in the publishing industry. Now we get to know him as a debut novelist. Not surprisingly, Galassi writes about publishing itself, and it will be fun to match fiction with real-life fact. Paul Dukach is heir apparent at Purcell & Stern, hanging on in seen-better-days offices near Manhattan’s Union Square (much like Farrar’s) as one of the few remaining independents. Right now, he’s after Ida Perkins, a dazzling and culturally significant poet (yes, poetry matters!) whose longtime publisher, also her cousin and sometime lover, is a major rival of Paul’s boss. When Paul seeks out Ida at her Venetian palazzo, he learns a startling secret.” —Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
“Jonathan Galassi has accomplished that most difficult of tasks, which is to write a lively and interesting novel about book publishing, many scenes of which brought back to me vividly what book publishing is (or used to be) like: larger than life figures (at any rate in their own minds), impossible authors, intense rivalry, and daily drama. It will explain to hoi polloi what book publishers do when they’re not lunching, and to those in the industry it will present a fascinating roman-a-clef puzzle to solve.” —Michael Korda, author of Queenie and Another Life
