Category: Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker!

Friday evening, Christopher Schwarz, Linda Watts and I gathered around, drinks in hand, to discuss the “treatment” of Roy Underhill’s “Calvin Cobb, Radio Woodworker! A Novel with Measured Drawings.”

We looked at a passel of books that were published in the mid 1930s as inspiration for the font, header, footers page numbers, margins… everything that goes into making a book look appropriate for the content, and a joy to read and look at.

Then we ate what I think is our collective weight in fried chicken and mashed potatoes. (And thanks to Chris’ largesse, I enjoyed a snifter of Pappy Van Winkle’s 12 year – my bourbon of choice on the rare occasions I can find it.)

Linda is the designer on this project (and for many Lost Art Press books), and she has a lifetime of experience with woodworking titles. For almost a decade, Chris and I worked with her at Popular Woodworking Magazine. Before that, she designed Nick Engler’s “Workshop Companion” series of books, and was the founding designer for Hands On!, Shopsmith’s magazine. Plus, she reads a lot of novels. So Linda is the perfect person to work on “Calvin.”

Within a week or two, she’ll have ready a few “treatments” that we’ll share with Roy for his reaction and input, then she’ll massage the look until everyone involved says, “Yes – that’s it!” After that, it’s simply a matter of styling all the text and images, a few more editing passes, then off to the printer!

OK…maybe that’s a bit reductive, but we are now moving along apace – it won’t be long before “Calvin” is in your hands.

And when it’s off to the printer, I may indulge in a little treatment for myself…in the form of a bottle of 12-year Pappy’s.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

Last week, I burned a passel of vacation hours from my day job so I could travel to North Carolina to hang out with Roy Underhill and Chris Schwarz (an excellent way to spend vacation hours), and take some time together to look at 1930s tomes for binding/cover treatment inspiration, talk about illustrations for the book and bug Roy about his manuscript. (I’m eager – nay, salivating – to read the revised text, give it a copy edit, and put it in the hands of the book designer.)

After much deliberation, we’re switching tactics on the book’s illustrations; instead of Hardy Boys-style line drawings, “Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker! (A Novel with Measured Drawings),” will include vintage photographs of the places and things that Roy’s radio-woodworking uncle, Calvin*, mentions in the text. (It will, of course, also have measured drawings of the woodworking projects – otherwise, we’d have to change the title.)

Because Calvin’s day job involves manure spreaders, along with pictures of 1930s Washington, D.C., and other locales, there’s going to be some bullsh*t – some funny, funny bullsh*t.

And while we were at The Woodwright’s School (where Chris was teaching a Dutch tool chest class and I was helping out in between Diet Coke breaks), Roy had a truly inspired idea for the chapter spots (the little images one often sees at the beginning of a novel’s chapters – think “Harry Potter”). So, he raced all over town (Pittsboro…it can be covered quickly) taking pictures. I think they’re brilliant – and I’m ever so eager to share them with you…but not yet.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

p.s. Yes, we’re still on track for publication late this fall.

* You’ve heard Roy talk about his grandfather…so I know you’ll believe this, too…right?

I took a vacation day on Friday, ostensibly to work on my kitchen rehab – but my lunch “meeting” and shopping trip were a great deal more fun than installing a sub-floor and leveling cabinets. Chris and I met at Tom+Chee for grilled cheese and tomato soup, then ambled the few blocks down to one of my favorite places in Cincinnati: Ohio Book Store.

With five floors of used books, it’s the perfect place to search for 1930s novels to use as exemplars for the design and production choices for Roy Underhill’s forthcoming book, “Calvin Cobb – Radio Woodworker! A Novel with Measured Drawings.”

Because Roy’s book will feature illustrations, we spent a most of our limited time (we were both parked at 1-hour meters) perusing the shelves in the “juvenile” section, thinking books therein would be most like the look we want…not that we yet know exactly what that look is.

The content of the volumes didn’t matter to us at all; they just had to look good. But rest assured – we weren’t just judging the books by their covers – we also judged their bindings, typography and layout. (Don’t worry; we’ll skip the self-destructing acid paper common in the period – that’s a verisimilitudinal* step too far).

I think we got four books for less than $20, each of which had things we liked and things we didn’t – or things we loved but are likely impractical (inked edges on the pages, for example). We’ll pass these along to the designer for inspiration…a hand-off I’m hopeful will come soon, so she or he can get started on the layout and font selection.

I mentioned last week that I’ve the updated manuscript in hand, and I’ve now completed a full read-through and have just a couple of questions for Roy. The next step is to talk with Roy about my notes and any additional edits he wants to make, then fact-check all dates, building names, numbers etc., and finalize the illustrator. We’ll be working on the drawings alongside layout, leaving blank pages where the art will later be dropped in.

Right now, we’re on schedule to have it edited, illustrated, printed, bound and on its way to you well before the end of the year.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

* Yes, I know that’s not a word – but it should be, along with “whelmed.”

Today, Roy Underhill sent Chris and me a delightful and much-anticipated gift indeed – the (almost) final author edit of “Calvin Cobb – Radio Woodworker!” I was having a bad day; now I am not. I’m having a grand time laughing my way through Roy’s revised copy whilst sipping a little bourbon and petting my three-legged cat, Possum.

On Friday, I’m headed down with Chris to the Ohio Book Store to search for the perfect stack of 1930s novels to inspire the designer – the typeface and look of the book is of great import to Roy, and rightfully so. The right look adds a graphic dimension to your experience of reading by transporting you beyond the words’ denotations and visually into the era in which the novel takes place. (Wow…I sound like an English teacher.)

We’re also still working to select the perfect artist to illustrate Calvin and his cohorts; the choices have been narrowed…but it’s hard. I don’t have kids, but it’s hard enough to count on others to give my cats the same care and attention as do I (it’s why I dislike long trips). And this little baby of Roy’s has been gestating for a long time – to whom should we entrust its care? I don’t know…but I hope to within the month.

In the meantime, here are a couple paragraphs from the manuscript to whet your appetite.

Calvin Cobb dodged through the morning stream of pedestrians on Pennsylvania Avenue and sprang up the gum-dotted steps of the old Post Office building. In the gleaming, Ionic-columned forest of 1937 New Deal Washington, entering this grimy castle was best done quickly—like pulling off a bandage. Today, though, he paused and glanced back at the odd behavior of the sidewalk crowd. Men and women who should have been hurrying to their own offices were, instead, holding onto their hats and squinting straight up at the clock tower high above him. Calvin threw himself flat against the granite column framing the doorway. It took a few seconds of peering upwards into the shadows of the clock tower for him to realize that it wasn’t a jumper they were looking at—it was a painter working on scaffolding suspended halfway down one of the gigantic clock faces. Calvin now shuddered with a new fear as he reasoned in Washington logic, They’re retouching the clock on the iceberg—the wrecking ball can’t be far behind!

…

Calvin took a shallow breath and stared up at the narrow iron trusses of the skylight above him and imagined suddenly finding himself transported there, clinging to a thin iron spandrel high above the cavernous pit. The frightening image worked—a shivering thrill began below his ears, converged in his spine, and broke up into a million rivulets in his legs. Calvin Cobb had charged himself with his full morning dose of adrenaline—just as the one-armed woman patted him on the back.

Who is this one-armed woman? Will they tear down Calvin’s office building? What happens when you spread manure at a speed of 50 miles per hour? How can you build things on the radio? Does Calvin get the girl? I know the answers to all these questions. But you’ll have to wait…just a few more months.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

p.s. If you have a recommendation for an illustrator, the perfect 1930s font or what have you, please send those direct to me at meganfitzpatrick@fuse.net (because it’s really weird to have Chris acting as my secretary; it’s usually the other way ’round).