Inconveniencing Dissent: Barnes & Noble, Borders Hide "Deer Hunting With Jesus"
Being one of the vanishing primates who prefers "brick & mortar" to online retail, I resisted the temptation to purchase Joe Bageant's book "Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War" online.
Having anticipated the book's release for as long as I've known and loved Joe (well before the money monkeys at Crown traded the working title, Drink, Pray, Fight, Fuck... with the comparatively tepid title, Deer Hunting With Jesus...) I wanted to experience the corporeal pleasure of seeing it on the actual shelf of an actual bookstore amid the carpeted hush and subtle fragrance of toxic chemicals wafting from ink-saturated pages and artful book jackets.
Knowing a thing or two about category management and various other specialties comprising the blackest of The Black Arts, a discipline known by both practitioners and victims as marketing, I happened into a Barnes & Noble in Denton, Texas, my eyes scanning the choice promotional areas where books are not merely sold, but moved.
Nope, nothing there.
I make my way to Politics & Current Events, where Barack Obama is delivering the Sermon on the Mount and Hillary Clinton strikes a triangulating pose of genuflection, pensiveness and wax dummyhood. Penetrating the sickly fluorescent glare are Rahm Emmanuel, James Baker, Bob Shrum and Ari Fleisher, each pitching a bible of self-aggrandizement, their faces staring out from bookshelves like fiberglass alligators at a roadside attraction. Ignoring the queasiness, I persevere, my hand instinctively orbiting back to my wallet to confirm none of these scoundrels have picked my pocket. Not this time, motherfuckers.
But Deer Hunting With Jesus, its cover depicting a miniature American flag affixed to a blurry pickup adjacent to a modest church, is conspicuously absent.
This was my second trip to a major bookstore during the month of June and the second time I had come up empty-handed, and now I was starting to get suspicious. The first time, at a Borders Books & Music in Dallas, I assumed - mistakenly, I now suspect - that I'd beaten the book's arrival.
So, on my second mission, this time at Barnes & Noble, I approached a clerk and asked about Deer Hunting With Jesus. None of the three employees present had heard of it, but after minimal electronic investigation, I was told it resided it in the Social Sciences section, where I was escorted and shown the book. Like a loaded gun placed safely out of reach from the probing hands of errant, mischievous, potentially murderous toddlers, the high contrast jacket - red, white, blue and gray - gleamed from its humble position at the far end of the row; a misfit in the small "Social Sciences" section conveniently located near the narrow, lightly traveled wall aisle mandated by the Fire Chief.
I mentioned the odd placement, but didn't raise any hell about it at the time, mostly because I got sidetracked by a conversation with a very thoughtful and courteous steward of the store and was also pressed for time. Besides, B&N is a corporate monolith. The decisions about what gets sold versus what gets moved are made deep in the bowels of The Machine, far removed from the brick & mortar retail slaves.
CURRENT AFFAIRS - AMERICAN/POLITICAL/POVERTY is how Crown, not exactly small potatoes as a division of Random House, categorizes Deer Hunting With Jesus. It's on the jacket, not coincidentally, just above the bar code.
Searching for the book at Barnes & Noble, and previously at Borders, it never occurred to me to look anywhere except the Politics & Current Affairs section. Everything about it is political: the cover art, the endorsements (Sherman Alexie, Studs Terkel, Jeffrey St. Claire, Howard Zinn, Mark Cripsin Miller, David Sirota) and every chapter therein.
The corporate robots at both Barnes & Noble and Borders Books & Music, in a mutually assured spasm of category mismanagement (something that would really piss me off were I a stockholder) appear to have decided Deer Hunting With Jesus should be torpedoed. The appearance of the word "POVERTY" in the classification technically allows retail chains all the cover they need to bury the book in Social Sciences, where it is free to attract the darting eyeballs of random passers-by en route to the pisser and limp-dick academics in need of some instant expertise before their next cocktail & weenie function.
When it comes to product placement, there are no accidents in the world of brick & mortar retail chains. Which means it is hardly accidental that Deer Hunting With Jesus is being hidden from the tired eyes of the very readers most likely to identify with Bageant's white-hot populist message delivered with caustic humor, heartbreaking poignancy and - sin of sins! - dangerous clarity.
Next time around, I'll just order my book of choice online. At least I'll be spared the fiberglass alligators.
Having anticipated the book's release for as long as I've known and loved Joe (well before the money monkeys at Crown traded the working title, Drink, Pray, Fight, Fuck... with the comparatively tepid title, Deer Hunting With Jesus...) I wanted to experience the corporeal pleasure of seeing it on the actual shelf of an actual bookstore amid the carpeted hush and subtle fragrance of toxic chemicals wafting from ink-saturated pages and artful book jackets.
Knowing a thing or two about category management and various other specialties comprising the blackest of The Black Arts, a discipline known by both practitioners and victims as marketing, I happened into a Barnes & Noble in Denton, Texas, my eyes scanning the choice promotional areas where books are not merely sold, but moved.
Nope, nothing there.
I make my way to Politics & Current Events, where Barack Obama is delivering the Sermon on the Mount and Hillary Clinton strikes a triangulating pose of genuflection, pensiveness and wax dummyhood. Penetrating the sickly fluorescent glare are Rahm Emmanuel, James Baker, Bob Shrum and Ari Fleisher, each pitching a bible of self-aggrandizement, their faces staring out from bookshelves like fiberglass alligators at a roadside attraction. Ignoring the queasiness, I persevere, my hand instinctively orbiting back to my wallet to confirm none of these scoundrels have picked my pocket. Not this time, motherfuckers.
But Deer Hunting With Jesus, its cover depicting a miniature American flag affixed to a blurry pickup adjacent to a modest church, is conspicuously absent.
This was my second trip to a major bookstore during the month of June and the second time I had come up empty-handed, and now I was starting to get suspicious. The first time, at a Borders Books & Music in Dallas, I assumed - mistakenly, I now suspect - that I'd beaten the book's arrival.
So, on my second mission, this time at Barnes & Noble, I approached a clerk and asked about Deer Hunting With Jesus. None of the three employees present had heard of it, but after minimal electronic investigation, I was told it resided it in the Social Sciences section, where I was escorted and shown the book. Like a loaded gun placed safely out of reach from the probing hands of errant, mischievous, potentially murderous toddlers, the high contrast jacket - red, white, blue and gray - gleamed from its humble position at the far end of the row; a misfit in the small "Social Sciences" section conveniently located near the narrow, lightly traveled wall aisle mandated by the Fire Chief.
I mentioned the odd placement, but didn't raise any hell about it at the time, mostly because I got sidetracked by a conversation with a very thoughtful and courteous steward of the store and was also pressed for time. Besides, B&N is a corporate monolith. The decisions about what gets sold versus what gets moved are made deep in the bowels of The Machine, far removed from the brick & mortar retail slaves.
CURRENT AFFAIRS - AMERICAN/POLITICAL/POVERTY is how Crown, not exactly small potatoes as a division of Random House, categorizes Deer Hunting With Jesus. It's on the jacket, not coincidentally, just above the bar code.
Searching for the book at Barnes & Noble, and previously at Borders, it never occurred to me to look anywhere except the Politics & Current Affairs section. Everything about it is political: the cover art, the endorsements (Sherman Alexie, Studs Terkel, Jeffrey St. Claire, Howard Zinn, Mark Cripsin Miller, David Sirota) and every chapter therein.
The corporate robots at both Barnes & Noble and Borders Books & Music, in a mutually assured spasm of category mismanagement (something that would really piss me off were I a stockholder) appear to have decided Deer Hunting With Jesus should be torpedoed. The appearance of the word "POVERTY" in the classification technically allows retail chains all the cover they need to bury the book in Social Sciences, where it is free to attract the darting eyeballs of random passers-by en route to the pisser and limp-dick academics in need of some instant expertise before their next cocktail & weenie function.
When it comes to product placement, there are no accidents in the world of brick & mortar retail chains. Which means it is hardly accidental that Deer Hunting With Jesus is being hidden from the tired eyes of the very readers most likely to identify with Bageant's white-hot populist message delivered with caustic humor, heartbreaking poignancy and - sin of sins! - dangerous clarity.
Next time around, I'll just order my book of choice online. At least I'll be spared the fiberglass alligators.
posted by Arvin Hill at 7/01/2007 11:02:00 PM
<< Home