Today, June 14, is the official publication date for the paperback edition of The Stone Loves the World. Hooray! The design of the hardcover edition has been my favorite of all my books—many thanks to Colin Webber and the Viking art department—and the paperback is even better, although I doubt anyone but the greedy-eyed author would ever notice the difference. (So I’ll just tell you: the eclipsing celestial bodies on the spine, formerly bald, have been given a texture echoing the sand-beach pattern on the front. Brilliant!)
There is one other change, which is internal. When I was writing this novel, I wanted to be as meticulous about factual details as the main character, Mark, prides himself on being. For example, a number of the chapters occur on specific dates, and I made sure that any mention of the weather, the phase of the moon, or the time of sunrise or sunset would be correct for those dates. The Greyhound bus that Mette takes from New York City to Seattle precisely follows the real Greyhound schedule. When Mark looks up NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day on February 18, 2016, the image he sees is the one that was really posted on that date. Etcetera.
You might think, then, that I would have avoided making any truly egregious chronological errors. But you’d be wrong. On p. 211 of the hardcover edition, Vernon refers to the cartoonist Walt Kelly’s famous quip, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Unfortunately, Vernon is speaking in 1958, whereas Kelly didn’t make the joke until 1970. (My thanks to reader Tony for pointing this out to me, with exquisite tact.) In the paperback edition, that sorry-ass error has been quietly cut out.
Everything else is the same. But if you want the 100% guaranteed correct text with the nicely textured celestial bodies on the spine, even if you already own the hardcover, you’ll just have to shell out for the paperback. Act now, before Tony gets in touch with me again.
