The Pub in Publishing

Noah Hawley, a Grotto writer whose two novels, A Conspiracy of Tall Men and Other People's Weddings, came out from Harmony (a Random House imprint) and St. Martin's, respectively, contributes "Hurricane Tours," which follows a young on-and-off couple taking a trip to Florida during a hurricane to test the strength of their bond. Not surprisingly, it topples and frays like an untethered trailer. These people are jerks, but we still hope for the best. The story feels a little dated -- the kids work for "dot coms" in the "new economy" -- but I attribute that to a long lead time (a regular book can take two years to put out; this one was six years in the making).

A teacher at SFSU, Alejandro Murguía delivers a piece unlike any other in Public House. His books have primarily come out from City Lights, but he deserves a wider audience; "A Toda Máquina," which has appeared in two other collections, is riveting, painfully and painstakingly tracking an ex-con as he heads swiftly down the wrong road. The story features a voice that rings with authenticity and wicked humor, and it left me clearer than ever before on why losers attract each other.

The always-entertaining Grotto gal Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (W.W. Norton), often humanizes the absurd in her first-person essays. True to form, in "Flush of the Future" she brings us to the sad, proud Toto Technical Center in Tokyo, maker of, uh, high-end toilets. Rather than take cheap shots, which would have been easy, Roach gives us a funny little lesson in humility.

Several of the other writers produce pieces that are somewhat entertaining or smart but not particularly compelling; most often, the stories have no point. Some of them are downright silly. Others probably work better on the stage. A few of the usual suspects appear -- among them Peter Plate, who has his self-taught San Francisco squatter shtick down, and Po Bronson, whose chiseled visage appeared on the cover of Wired and Fast Company but whose popularity otherwise escapes me -- but not as many as I'd expected. There are some good poems from Susan Browne here, and I suspect that her work is particularly suited to live pub performance because it's short (at the book launch the audience grew restless by the middle of each story) and pointed.

Despite Public House's unevenness, I admire the Castle folks for putting it out. It's not an inexpensive proposition to publish a book yourself, and without the backing of a big house's publicity machine you have to hope that word-of-mouth will sell enough copies to cover your costs. The volume's clean, readable appearance is courtesy of Luke James, not a professional designer, and he's done an admirable job (most self-published books look cheap; this one doesn't). And some of the writers in this collection are seeing their work in print for the first time, which is sweet.

But the real reason to buy Public House is to make a statement about what books can do. To support the Edinburgh Castle in its literary endeavors is to support all the unknowns and oddballs and expats and freaks who can tell a story you haven't heard before in a place you'd never expect to hear it. Like the Santas in the bar, the volume takes a stuffy tradition and gives it the finger. And if one person who doesn't usually read catches a Castle reading and buys this title, it will have been worth it.