A Brief Note from the Editor

A Brief Note from the Editor

The Pittsburgh Book Review can trace its beginnings to early Monday mornings in the old University of Pittsburgh student union, this would be in the 1990s before the food court remodel, sharing coffee with my buddy, writer and publisher John Grochalski. We were undergrads trying and failing to make our way in the writing department (but that's another story). Those mornings before class our conversation usually worked around to arguing over Pittsburgh Post-Gazette books editor Bob Hoover's latest Sunday column and the offerings on the weekly book review pages.

Hoover was the books editor from 1987 until his retirement in 2011. An irascible and deeply knowledgeable critic, Hoover covered local and national literary doings with a gruff aplomb that invited a couple of eager twenty-somethings to argue with his every ink-smudged paragraph. Someday, I promised myself, I'm going to get Bob Hoover's job.

That never happened.

Instead Bob very generously gave me a chance to review a collection of Haruki Murakami's short stories for the paper. Needless to say I was over the moon to be writing my first serious book review. I was on my way now, boy. Next stop a weekly column of my own. You betcha!

That didn't happen either.

Bob rejected my review and it never ran in the paper or anywhere else. I was crushed. Bob was entirely right to shitcan what I wrote about Murakami's stories. I wrote my review in the manner that I wrote papers in my classes. Essentially I turned in a book report, not yet having realized that a book report is not a book review.

Not long after my bungled attempt at being a literary critic, Bob very graciously gave me another shot. There was a new and very long novel just out by the young Jonathan Lethem, would I like to give this writing about books thing another go? You betcha!

I've been writing about novels and poetry and every other sort of printed matter ever since.

–

That was in 2003. Things are quite a bit different now as I write this in August of 2020. The space given to book coverage in newspapers and magazines has all but disappeared. Hell, most physical newspapers and magazines have themselves taken a powder.

The Pittsburgh Book Review has been a dream project of mine for many years now. Get a few beers in me and ask what I'd really like to do with my life and I'd talk your ear off about this magazine idea of mine focused on following the main roads and alleyways of Pittsburgh literary culture and its incredible history.

Covid-19 has very rapidly and quite fundamentally changed our country. It is a tragedy and a nightmare. Due to the pandemic my regular gig writing about Pittsburgh writers for Pittsburgh Magazine has been put on indefinite hold. This has left me with a backlog of review copies from publishers and, in some cases, the writers themselves. Watching these books gather dust on my end-table has gone on long enough.

In the absence of other venues I created The Pittsburgh Book Review to give a home to my thoughts on these deserving tomes. I hope to also include the voices of other Pittsburgh writers on this site offering an ever evolving collection of reviews, essays, book excerpts, interviews, and who-knows-what-all.

I'd like to dedicate this site to Bob Hoover for giving me a chance and always riling me up.

Be well. Stay safe. Here we go.

Kristofer Collins, editor

08/04/2020