Edit: I'm posting the entire article because it's inaccessible through the
link. Important bit:
“There will be four books in all, coming out yearly. They take place a long time before the Series of Unfortunate Events. It’s more about Lemony Snicket himself.”~~~
Daniel Handler has just a few things to say about the new Lemony Snicket book he’s written that’s coming out in the fall.
“I’m quite excited about it,” he says by phone from the office of his publisher, Little, Brown in New York, where he was about to peruse art for the manuscript.
“There will be four books in all, coming out yearly. They take place a long time before the
Series of Unfortunate Events. It’s more about Lemony Snicket himself.”
Pressed further, he demurs.
“I think the readers of Dallas are upset enough.”
Besides, the readers of Dallas can ask him more in person when Handler arrives with illustrator Maira Kalman to discuss their new book,
Why We Broke Up, at the Dallas Museum of Art’s BooksmArt program on Jan. 29.
They will also have the opportunity to take a quiz that Handler and Kalman have prepared, although he won’t say what questions are on it.
“I think it’s better to create suspense, don’t you?”
Handler, 41, wrote
Why We Broke Up in the voice of an artsy high school girl, Min (short for Minerva), who falls in love with her seeming opposite, a jock named Ed, and, true to the title, breaks up with him.
The American Library Association gave it a 2012 Michael L. Printz Honor Book Award for excellence in literature written for young adults at its Dallas meeting this month.
Think of it as
High School Musical with a more unfortunate and, dare we say, realistic ending. Because the book deals openly with teen sexuality, the event is aimed at ages 13 and older (parental discretion advised).
The genesis of the book was Kalman’s desire to paint small objects that fascinated her. Seeking a story that would pull these objects together, Handler came up with the idea that they could be romantic mementos of a failed relationship.
The book, already set to be adapted into a film, has touched a nerve, Handler says. After it inspired countless people to tell him their breakup stories, Little, Brown launched a website, whywebrokeupproject.com, where people can share more.
Even the book jacket lists breakup stories, including one from David Levithan, co-author of
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist: “The boy I loved didn’t know I existed. Then again, he was obsessed with Camus, so he didn’t know if any of us existed.”
Handler declines to share his own breakup stories, except to note that they are many and that “I’ve always been dumped. … I was definitely the dumpee, not the dumper.”
That noted, he points out that he’s actually been out of the breakup market for quite a while due to his long, happy marriage to children’s book author and illustrator Lisa Brown.
He and Brown, who live in Handler’s native San Francisco, are currently collaborating on a small Snicket book for kids. They previously worked together on
The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming, a Snicket picture book about a potato pancake that is driven to distraction by a Christmas tree and flashing colored lights that mistake it for hash browns that would fit perfectly beside a Christmas ham.
That’s the only Snicket book that Handler and Brown’s son, Otto, 8, has wanted to read so far, his father says. “He likes the Latke book a lot. He likes my wife’s books a lot. He’s a big Mo Willems fan.”
As for
A Series of Unfortunate Events: “He asks me every so often what they’re about. I tell him terrible things happen over and over again. He is frightened of these books, and I don’t wish to press him.”
A Series of Unfortunate Events, for those who managed to miss these best-selling books and movie, is a 13-book series about the three clever, kind and unlucky Baudelaire siblings, who lose their parents in a mysterious fire and are plagued by deadly serpents, culinary challenges and the villainous Count Olaf, who sets out to steal their fortune.
For those not too afraid to ask questions — many of which were left unanswered at the end of The End , which is what he titled the final forlorn finale — this could be your hoped-for opportunity. Although if Handler stays true to form, hope is the thing with feathers that has a way of attracting tar and falling at your feet.
He promises to “talk incessantly,” but — why are we not surprised? — he doesn’t pledge to answer everything.
“Some questions I know the answer to and some I don’t.”
~~~