Pursuit of Happiness: A Left Bank Book

Pursuit of Happiness turned out to be a fantastic theme for this Left Bank Book, number eight in the series.From Linny Stovall's foreword:"I became intrigued by the idea of happiness for a Lef Bank theme after reading Steve Erickson's Arcd'X, a novel that time-travels with a Jeffersonian character and explores America's ambivalence about happiness. While we thrive on developing ideologies that aspire to the common good, we stalk hedonist dreams And yet, "the pursuit of happiness," so long a home in our history, originates from the most noble of instincts--revolt against tyranny. A startling declaration, a radical promise of entitlement to all citizens (or nearly all)."But what does it mean? What constitutes happiness? And how do we pursue it?"Now for a story about this book. When we decided on a theme for a new book in the series, we first sought out several well-known authors to provide cornerstones. Then, we put out a general call to writers and artists for submissions. Third, our interns stripped the authors' names from their pieces so that we would read them without prejudice.In truth, we often recognized the distinctive voices of some writers, even without names attached, and we got good at grouping submissions by those writers who studied with certain masters or in certain writing programs. Such was the case with aspiring writers who participated in the Dangerous Writing groups lead by wonderful author Tom Spanbauer (Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon). It helped, of course, that Tom's students were always hitting us hard with submissions.One of Spanbauer's students worked for Blue Heron. As noted in an earlier review/publisher's note, this person introduced us to another Spanbauer acolyte, Chuck Palahniuk, who she invited to dinner at our house. Later, reading it without his name on it, we acquired his story Fight Club and gave him his first publication.