The World is Only a Game, a Vanity Fair

This week I taped interviews for two NPR shows,  “Only a Game” and “The World.” “Only a Game” will be broadcast tomorrow, Saturday. It airs on most stations at 7 a.m., but instead of setting your alarm you can listen to it anytime afterward at onlyagame.org. “The World” is scheduled to air next Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Click here to see when it’s on where you live. Again, you can listen to it anytime afterward online.

I also did an interview yesterday with Tennis Week, which will appear on its website sometime soon.

The new (May) issue of Vanity Fair gives Splendor a one-sentence review (the only kind they do) in its “Hot Type” column: “For his smashing serve and spectacular rallies between sports history and political drama, game, set, and match go to Marshall Jon Fisher’s A Terrible Splendor.”

Also look for a review this Sunday in the San Francisco Chronicle and a writeup with photo(s) in Jan Gardner’s “Shelf Life” column in the Boston Globe. 

Finally, click here for a view of the ad that Crown put in the new (May) issue of Harper’s.

Financial Times are Good

I just got off the phone with my first interviewer, Buddy Early, the editor of the gay sports monthly, Compete. Our call was scheduled for 1pm, so when the phone rang at 12:59, I almost picked up with, “You’re Early, Buddy.” But he probably gets enough of that. In any case, the interview went well and presumably will be included in his review of the book in the May issue.

In other news, a few weeks ago our first review, a very favorable one, came in from the Financial Times of London. We don’t as yet have a British publisher, and the review was over a month early, but still it was very nice to get.  Peter Aspden called Splendor a “vivid account,” “a gripping read,” “lively and scrupulous.”

There’s a very nice mention also in the “Buzz” column on Inside Tennis‘s website. In fact, the writer took the column’s title—”The Fine Membrane Between Anticipation and Fulfillment”—from the book’s opening paragraph.

In coming weeks I’ll be making appearances on public radio’s “The World,” a Boston cable show, “The Literati Scene,” and another public-radio show, “Writer’s Voice“. See my Events page for more details.

Finally, the New York Times Book Review and the Wall Street Journal have confirmed that they will be reviewing Splendor (though they don’t say when or by whom). Also keep an eye out for a full-page ad in the May issue of Harper’s, and online ads on tennisweek.com and Harpers.org.

Tennis magazine excerpt

I’m told that the April issue of Tennis magazine, which includes an excerpt from A Terrible Splendor, has arrived in subscribers’ mailboxes. Presumably, then, it is either at newsstands now or will be imminently. The excerpt they chose consists almost completely of description of the Budge-von Cramm match, which, although it doesn’t give an accurate picture of the book as a whole, is of course appropriate for the venue.

Peter Bodo, the editor of Tennis, wrote a nice online column about the book back in November, and will be promoting it again in his column closer to publication date.

 

In other news, due to an unusual publishing snafu, in which an incorrect cover got sent to the printers, publication has been delayed one week, to April 21. This shouldn’t be a big deal, since my first booksigning is not until April 22, and books will still be shipped well before then.

New Events

Two new events have been added to the A Terrible Splendor schedule. First, the International Tennis Hall of Fame, in Newport, asked me to give a presentation and booksigning. It is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, May 7. Also, the Cambridge Tennis Club, in Cambridge, Mass., is going to host a wine-and-cheese reception and booksigning—for members only, as far as I know—on Wednesday, May 13, the day before my Porter Square Books reading.

Full schedule on the Events page at marshalljonfisher.com.

 

 

terribly splendid updates

Thanks for subscribing. As of this first posting, we are still waiting for the early reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and the like. Reading/booksignings have so far been scheduled for Books&Books in Miami on April 22, The Bookloft in Great Barrington, MA on May 2, and Politics and Prose in Washington, DC on May 9. Dates for Boston and other cities still to come.