I’m just learning of an April Fool’s joke pulled by the publisher Grove/Atlantic. It revolved around a fake novel called The Tornado Ashes Club, which the company had allegedly bought for an advance of mid-seven figures. News of the buy came complete with a promotional web site for the book. The plot summary was the first red flag:

A gunshot rings out on a Las Vegas night, and Silas Quilter’s life is shattered. Falsely accused, forced to flee from the law and from relentless bounty hunters, his only hope lies with an unlikely source of succor: his grandmother Evangeline. Together, they take to the American road in a Ford Maverick named Penelope. As they drive, Evangeline carries a special cargo: the ashes of a man she lost long ago. She tells Silas the story of their love, of his struggles that took him from the mud-drenched football fields of Pennsylvania to the hedgerows of war-torn Normandy, the marketplaces of Tunisia, and the vineyards of Peru. She tells Silas of his dying wish to have his ashes cast into a tornado.

A second, even redder flag could be found in an interview with the author:

What’s next for you?
Oh, I hate to talk about projects I’m working on. It de-powers them, you know? Strips away some of the magic.

You’ve got to give us something!
Okay, okay. I’ll tell you the title. The Wisdom of Acorns.

(Though maybe that flag isn’t red enough, given some of what’s published.)

In any case, what’s really being promoted by Grove/Atlantic is How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely, a forthcoming novel with a (slightly less earnest) tornado on its own cover. Hely’s tale tells the story of how a “‘pile of garbage’ called The Tornado Ashes Club became the most talked about, blogged about, read, admired, and reviled novel in America.”

(Via Mark Athitakis and GalleyCat)