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August 14, 2023 Some Extremely Nice Things That People I Don’t Know Said About What Will Now Be My Next Book

While not the best three-word phrase in the English language, “Offer of contract” is definitely in my personal top ten of email subject lines, especially when followed with:

“I am delighted to let you know that the board were really excited by the proposal, finding it a compelling and innovative concept that could establish a new vernacular and way of thinking about modern times and history. I’m therefore pleased to be able to offer you a contract to publish your work …”

That email from my editor was preceded three weeks earlier by an almost-as-excellent email regarding the four reader reports:

“As you will see, the readers were really excited by this manuscript, finding it incredibly original, timely, creative and trailblazing. They felt the work had fascinating implications for a range of disciplines and it was an accomplished work that was broad, fun and very engaging. You can read the rest of the very warm reviews in the attached reports but with this feedback in mind, I would very much like to progress your proposal to the next stage in our commissioning process and present it to our publishing board. This is a meeting made up of editorial, sales and marketing colleagues who will assess the proposal and the reviews to decide if your book would have a home on our literary studies list here.”

Four external readers is a lot, but the manuscript, Revising Reality (which I co-wrote with Nathaniel Goldberg as a general-interest sequel to our 2020 Revising Fiction, Fact, and Faith: A Philosophical Account) covers such a range of disciplines, so our editor was being thorough. While I know she and the editorial board enjoyed the reports, I suspect Nathaniel and I enjoyed them significantly more.

Here are some especially lovely excerpts:

Do you recommend we pursue publication? 

“I do. This book accomplishes something rare: applying potentially esoteric ideas to everyday life in a manner that could affect change. That’s cool.”

“Yes. It’s a genuinely good and deeply interesting book, which makes accessible and coherent some exceptionally thorny but urgent questions.”

“Yes. This is a truly unique book that feels like the starting point of a further expansion of literary/media studies into history and historiography, a potentially fruitful pursuit that could add a great deal to both fields.”

Is the book representative of the research landscape in the field?

“No, it is not representative of the research landscape in the field, but that is because it is a trailblazer and is attempting to establish that landscape by applying these tropes of fiction to the real world and showing why they are important.”

“Not really. This really is quite an original book, which means that it competes in its own kind of field.”

Does the material seem sufficiently up to date? 

“The timely nature of the book is one of its strengths.”

“In terms of engagement with a near comprehensive coverage of contemporary popular culture, the manuscript is indeed fantastically up-to-date.”

Please comment on the writing style. Is it written in the best way to support the book’s argument and central thesis?

“The writing is crisp, clear, and consistently engaging.”

“For a book this ambitious, moreover, the overall style is very accessible, which I also think is an accomplishment.”

“The writing is regularly snappy and direct. Working across so many topics is no small feat, but the prose is carefully measured and even-handed throughout even when engaging areas that are subjects of substantial controversy. There are lot of places where the book could go awry in tone, but there’s some judicious care and framing taken where it matters. It’s genuinely fun to read.”

How would you frankly describe the book to a friend or colleague?

“An accessible and engaging exploration of how storytelling frames our engagement with history and current events, through a lens that seamlessly combines literary theory, media studies, metaphysics, and historiography.”

“Neat book. Super readable. Fun for students. Makes a convincing case that we can use our talk of reboots and retcons to better understand history, science, law, and society.”

“This book takes tropes that we’re familiar with from popular culture – such as sequels and retcons – and applies them to the real world, showing how these tropes are an important way of understanding history and historiography.”

What positive contribution does it make?

“The book applies intersecting academic concepts (media analysis, metaphysics, and others) to ‘real world’ issues in a manner that is accessible and would likely retain the interest of both experts and laypersons. And it does so in a novel way.”

“I think highly of this book. It’s careful, timely, and lively. It engages an impressive breadth of topics in service of an interesting theoretical aim—one that scholars from diverse fields will recognize as potentially useful. No one will be an expert in each of the topics addressed, so any reader is sure to come away with an improved knowledge of one of science, law, fiction, pop culture, and so on.”

“This manuscript takes a set of artistic and pop culture tropes/concepts – sequels, remakes, retcons, and rejects – and applies them to the ways in which we understand and reinterpret/revise real-world history. This is a fascinating task, and one that expands upon previous work about these tropes to show how they are useful frameworks of interpretation for fields beyond just literary/media studies (namely, history, science, and jurisprudence).”

“Over a whole, this manuscript is an original and exciting approach to a rather wide range of topics. The focus through the concepts of revision, remaking, retconning and sequels works well and this frame allows the authors to connect a range of topics that would not otherwise quickly be thought or theorized together. I enjoyed how the authors of this book think American history and contemporary politics through the lens of popular culture. This, then, is an ambitious and creative academic endeavor, which I want to applaud.”

Would you be happy to provide a 20-50 word quote for our promotional materials and/or back cover of the book, with an acknowledgment if we decide to pursue publication?

“I would.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.  An exciting new application of popular culture tropes to our understanding of U.S. history and politics, and the ways both of these change over time.”

I can now also happily report that since receiving those external reviews and the thumbs-up from the Bloomsbury publishing board earlier this summer, Nathaniel and I have made a few additions and corrections, each of us rereading and then rereading again, before finalizing the manuscript — which we officially submitted last week.

Next up: copy edits!

Speaking of which, another question from the external reviewer form reveals what is probably my all-time worst (best?) typo:

Have you noticed any errors, inaccuracies or inconsistencies? 

“Page 142 – I think the phrase ‘discrimination-based sex’ at the end of the first paragraph should be ‘sex-based discrimination’?”

Indeed, it should.

I’m sure I’ll have lots more to say here about Revising Reality soonish.

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