HARK, HARK! THE ARC!

...With everything that pretty is,
My  novel sweet, arise:

Arise, arise! 

First staircase thought about Still Life With Monkey

In today's news, one of the best/worst corrections ever, from the Associated Press.  In Still Life With Monkey, there is a moment when this mistake would have belonged perfectly in the thoughts of a child whose father has just died.

Still Life With Monkey with Monkey

Farah the helper monkey took her own red pencil to my manuscript pages. Who could possibly have more expertise?

In case you are wondering, Farah is a 35-year-old tufted capuchin monkey.  Why is she named Farah? Think about it. She has a beautiful tuft (if you like that sort of thing), and 35 years ago a certain actress famous for her flowing and voluminous hair was very popular....yes, that's right.

STILL LIFE WITH MONKEY

At long last!  Still Life With Monkey! This wonderful cover strikes all the notes.  Publication in early September, with books on store shelves in August. It's already available for pre-order on Amazon and the Paul Dry Books website: www.pauldrybooks.com

“STILL LIFE WITH MONKEY is a brilliantly crafted novel, brimming with heart. Pairing poetry with wisdom, this is a story about what it means to live, love, and grow.” ―Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage

“Katharine Weber goes deep with the extraordinary STILL LIFE WITH MONKEY, a rich and compelling meditation on the question of what makes life worth living. Her characters are vividly, achingly real, including the tiny, furry one at the novel’s center. I kept thinking about all of them long after I’d read the final words of this beautiful book.” ―Ann Packer, author of The Dive From Clausen's Pier

“In Katharine Weber’s new novel she takes on one of the most challenging subjects we know―the question of how to face a life we never imagined. She does so with great subtlety, tenderness and intelligence, as well as the beautiful prose we expect from her.” ―Roxana Robinson, author of This Is My Daughter

"Among the many brilliances of Katharine Weber’s new novel, is the whole idea of a ‘still life.’ Painters saw unnatural stillness as a contradiction in terms, yet containing a mysterious truth. Here, too, mysterious truth - a car accident, a wheelchair (another contradiction), paralysis, and honest and beautifully-drawn people, stopped in midpassage. To this still life comes the capuchin monkey, the service animal who attends the disconnections of the spine, the spirit, and of the species. STILL LIFE is life still―the theme of this original, remarkable book.” ―Roger Rosenblatt, author of Kayak Morning

“STILL LIFE WITH MONKEY is radiantly tender and piercingly sad. Katharine Weber is a magician of a novelist, one who writes about loss and loneliness with such compassion and humor that we feel enchanted as we read.” ―Brian Morton, author of Starting Out in the Evening and Florence Gordon

Revising! Still Life With Monkey

One of my favorite moments in the process of writing a novel is where I am right now, pumping more air into the tires, responding to utterly brilliant and insightful notes and questions from my literary agent, Amy Williams. I aim to finish before the end of the month.

STILL LIFE WITH MONKEY

The finished manuscript goes to my literary agent today, with a new title that better captures the sensibility of the novel: Still Life with Monkey. 

I like the multiple layers of possible meaning here. While I have thought about my work in progress for some three years as The Monkey Helper, it really isn't quite right. And this way, the inevitable, "Is that like Hamburger Helper?" is averted. Though I do have someone ask exactly that in the novel.