If You Liked ‘Spycatcher,’ You’ll Love ‘Stalker’

Through no intent or grand design of its own, Viking seems to find itself making a specialty of publishing books that embarrass British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government. Last July, there was “Spycatcher,” by Peter Wright with Paul Greengrass, a real-life thriller so upsetting to the Tory government that it was banned in Britain on grounds it compromised the island’s national security. Nevertheless, the book was an enormous success, with clandestine copies sold outside the Houses of Parliament, or ordered from U.S. booksellers who were entirely eager to make overseas sales. Here in the rebel Colonies, the book hit the New York Times best-seller list on Aug. 2 and has remained there ever since, chalking up about 800,000 copies in sales. Viking, of course, was thrilled, if more than a little surprised by the enthusiasm with which the book was received. “I don’t think anybody knew there was that kind of an audience,” Viking publicity director Victoria Meyer said. Now, here comes “The Stalker Affair,” Viking’s newest blot on Britain’s governmental psyche. English police administrator John Stalker claims that his 1982 investigation of the shooting of two unarmed civilians in Northern Ireland was thwarted by the Thatcher regime. The book is a current best seller in both Ireland and Great Britain, having sold 60,000 copies in just two weeks. With the book due for May 2 publication in this country, Viking’s Meyer says demurely, “Publishing books that the British government would like to suppress seems to have become something of a specialty of ours.” As they say in Great Britain, quite.

REGAL INHERITANCE: Columbia University is the recipient of 25,000 manuscripts, drafts and correspondence from the collection of Ellery Queen. The famous detective-author was actually two people, Brooklyn-born cousins, Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, who entered a mystery novel contest in 1928 that required the use of a pseudonym. Lee died in 1971; Dannay, in 1982.

ADVANCE WORD: Literary agent Carol Mann remembers how she was both embarrassed and relieved to find a publisher for Paul Auster’s “The New York Trilogy.” Mann was ecstatic when tiny Sun and Moon Press of Los Angeles agreed to publish the first volume, but less than eager to tell her client about the meager, $100-advance the book had garnered. On the other hand, Mann remembered sadly, “No New York house was interested.” Since then, Auster has earned critical acclaim, and has moved to Viking. Last week, Mann reported jubilantly that Viking agreed to a six-figure advance for Auster’s next novel.

SIX EVENINGS: The University of California Press has scheduled a series of lectures, slide shows and discussions with some of its most prominent authors, editors and illustrators. “Meet the Press,” as the series is known, runs through March 4 at UCLA’s Dodd Hall. (Information: (213) 825-1911.) The effort follows on such recent innovations and successes by UC Press, the country’s largest university press, as the launching of a “public publishing” drive encouraging bibliophiles to build a $1-million endowment; forthcoming publication of the papers of Martin Luther King Jr.; and the acquisition of the Lannan grant for a series in contemporary art criticism.

PUBLIC ACCESS, and lack thereof: In a new report, “Less Access to Less Information by and About the U.S. Government: IX,” covering the period June to December, 1987, the American Library Assn. charges increased administration efforts to “restrict and privatize” government information, resulting in “significantly limited access to public documents and statistics.” Since 1982, the report states, one of every four of the government’s 16,000 publications has been eliminated, and citizen access to government information has been reduced.

SMALL PRESS’ BIG GATHERING: Dan Poynter, head of Para Publishing in Santa Barbara, will be among the featured speakers at this year’s Small Press and Magazine Expo. The conference/convention will be held March 28-30 at the New York Penta Hotel here in the Big Apple.

TOLSTOY FOR TOTS: “The Lion and the Puppy,” a collection of 25 children’s stories by Leo Tolstoy, will be published in April by Seaver Books, an imprint of Henry Holt. At least a third of the stories have never been published in English.

ALSO REAPPEARING: “Missing,” the Tom Hauser book that served as the inspiration for the movie of the same name, will return to print as a trade paperback from Simon & Schuster’s Touchstone imprint. The book was taken out of print in 1983 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and Avon after the book became the target of an ultimately unsuccessful libel suit. Hauser won the rights to his book back last autumn; his own suit against the original publishers, seeking damages and lost income, is still pending.

HANDS ACROSS THE URALS: “Yanks Meet Reds,” an anthology of recollections of U.S. and Soviet veterans from World War II, will be published simultaneously in English by Capra Press of Santa Barbara and in Russian by Novosti Press Agency Publishing House of Moscow.

NEW VENTURE: Eridanos Press Inc., a partnership consisting of Andrea Nasi and Juan Garcia de Oteyza and the Italian publishing house Bompiani, will launch the Eridanos Library, a series of 20th-Century foreign literature in English translation, in March. The initial list of six titles will reflect the endeavor’s goal of introducing American readers to books considered modern classics abroad, but unavailable to date in this country.

NEW PROJECT: Following the gargantuan success of “Chronicle of the 20th Century,” Chronicle Publications is publishing a $14.95 cloth book called “Chronicle of the Year, 1987.” Chronicle will ship 200,000 copies of the new title.

NEW LINE: Facts On File has joined the burgeoning young adult market with a multivolume series set for spring publication. Among the new titles are “Makers of America,” “The Ethnic Heritage of America,” “The Encyclopedia of Health” and the “Young Naturalist” series.

NEW HOUSE, SAME IMPRINT: Seymour Lawrence has moved his imprint from E. P. Dutton to Houghton Mifflin.

THE COMPUTER CONNECTION: “Good Reads,” a first-of-its-kind computerized fiction reference system devised by senior librarian Harriet Traeger, will be implemented in mid-1988 by the Los Angeles County Public Library. The service will be available at the Hawthorne, Rosemead and West Covina libraries.

AUTHOR TURNS SCHOLAR: Stephen Ambrose, author of “Nixon: The Education of a Politician 1913-1962” (Simon & Schuster), has been named a visiting Nixon Scholar at Whittier College, the former President’s alma mater. Ambrose’s Whittier College students were, on the average, 6 years old during the last years of Nixon’s presidency.

CALLING ALL POETS: As an apparent antidote to the adjective starving, most commonly associated with those who cast verse, the American Poetry Assn. has doubled the prize value of its two open poetry contests for 1988. Now $10,000 in prizes will be awarded to 151 poets in each of two separate contests this year, including two grand prizes of $1,000 each. To further combat starvation, the contests bear no entry fee. Additional information may be obtained by contacting the American Poetry Assn., Department CN-39, 250A Potrero St., P.O. Box 1803, Santa Cruz, Calif. 95061-1803.

IN MEMORIAM: Leon Seltzer, director emeritus of the Stanford University Press, died recently after a long illness. He was 69.

MAYBE IT’S SOMETHING IN THE WATER: For the second year in a row, a Los Angeles writer has won the Best Private Eye Novel contest, sponsored by St. Martin’s Press, the Private Eye Writers of America and Macmillan Ltd. in London. Gar Haywood’s “Fear of the Dark” will be published in July by St. Martin’s, and centers around a black detective in Los Angeles. Haywood is a field engineer for Control Data who has been writing since age 15.

HELLO HOLLYWOOD, HELL0: Isis, a film production company owned by the actress Cher, has bought the rights to Rachel Ingalls’ novel, “Mrs. Caliban” (Harvard Common Press). No word yet on who, or what, will play Larry the monster. Also from the land of L.A. via Harvard Common Press, we hear that Cybill Shepherd, recent mother of twins, has bought six copies of “The Nursing Mother’s Companion,” by Kathleen Huggins.

AND THE NOMINEES ARE: Perennial literary bridesmaid Toni Morrison and her novel “Beloved” are once again up for a top prize, this time the $50,000 Ritz Paris Hemingway Award for the best novel of 1987. Also nominated are Nadine Gordimer, for “A Sport of Nature,” and Michael Ondaatje, for “In the Skin of a Lion.” All three are published by Alfred A. Knopf. Sponsored by Mohammed al-Fayed, owner of the Ritz Hotel in Paris, the prize will be presented there on April 11.

MLA PRIZES: The Modern Language Assn. has awarded the fourth annual prize for independent scholars to Paul van Caspel for “Bloomers on the Liffey: Eisegetical Readings of Joyce’s Ulysses” (Johns Hopkins University Press). The $1,000 award is presented for distinguished published research in the fields of modern languages and literature.

Other MLA awards for 1987 include the $500, seventh annual Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize to Alice C. Omaggio for “Teaching Language in Context: Proficiency-Oriented Instruction” (Heinle & Heinle); the eighteenth annual James Russell Lowell Prize ($1,000) to Joseph Frank for “Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860-65” (Princeton University Press); and the $500, seventh annual Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize to Judith Summerfield and Geoffrey Summerfield for “Texts and Contexts: A Contribution to the Theory and Practice of Teaching Composition” (Random House).

YIKES, MORE AWARDS:

“Charley Skedaddle” (Morrow Junior Books), a Civil War novel by Riverside, Calif., author Patricia Beatty Uhr, has won the $5,000 1987 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, presented annually to the best book of historical fiction published each year for children and young adults.

Story Line Press has awarded its $2,000 Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize to David Dooley for his manuscript, “The Volcano Inside.”

Leonard Barkan, author of “The God Made Flesh: Metamorphosis and the Pursuit of Paganis” (Yale University Press), is the winner of the 1987 Christian Gauss Award. Presented each year by Phi Beta Kappa for an outstanding work of literary criticism, the award carries a $2,500 honorarium.

Novelist Raja Rao of India has been named the 10th recipient of the $25,000 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, presented every two years by the University of Oklahoma and its literary journal World Literature Today. Rao’s most recent novel is “The Chessmaster and His Moves.”