When the invite came a few weeks ago touting Bookspan‘s cocktail party as “the literary event of the season,” I figured it was just hype – especially when an “expected guest list” accompanied a follow-up email a few days before the event. But I suppose about 600 other people in the publishing industry must have thought the same thing, or attended because of the food (admittedly divine, what with the plentiful sushi bar, the cheese and antipasto table and later, the sweet table) or had some other reason to go, because baby, this place was packed.
Going through the who’s who would be pointless. If you were somebody in publishing, you were at the Hotel Pierre last night, trying to elbow your way to the bar or shout over the din to have something resembling a proper conversation (though there were many to be had.) Or perhaps you were, like me, occasionally making your way out of the crush to the alcove, where an oasis of space beckoned and you could sit down and watch the mingling at a distance.
And the fact that I switched to second person POV is no accident, because Bookspan’s party really had some kind of faux-throwback 80s feel to it, like the literary Brat Pack would suddenly rise from their metaphorical ashes to take back their rightful places as the literary darlings du jour. But what really snapped me back to attention was the impulse to check the press table on the way home. Nametag after nametag left unclaimed, a silent testimony to the Rosen Group‘s semi-desperate attempts to get media attention for the yearly shindig. That Julie Bosman (NYT) Joe Hagan (NY Mag) Deborah Norville (Inside Edition) and a producer from the Early Show didn’t attend was one thing. But when Gawker‘s Intern Alexis couldn’t be bothered to make an appearance, well, that pretty much said it all.
UPDATE: Of course, there is the question of whether what’s essentially an insiders-only party *should* be covered by the press, as one publishing type points out, and if I dislodged my tongue from my cheek, I would ask as well. “Yeah, the press never comes to these things — and we’re happy that way. The party-givers may not be, but for us it’s a chance to see people we may not have seen in months, maybe even since the last Bookspan party. That’s why that room is so packed — we know everybody else will be there, and there’s really no other publishing event in which that’s the case. If it appears in the press, fine, but basically we don’t give a hoot. This night’s for us!”