FOGHORN

This novelistic memoir focuses on the publishing business in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In this book, publishing executive DeArmon delves into her tenure leading Foghorn Press and its impact on her personal and business relationships. Foghorn started as a vehicle for publishing the sports books of her husband, Sully. In 1987, the author kept the business as part of their divorce settlement. Her brother, Dave, also dealing with the end of a long-term relationship, joined her. Making Foghorn Press profitable became their mission. She recalls that their renewed closeness allowed her to reflect and heal from her difficult relationship with Sully. Over 10 years, Foghorn became a respected publisher of outdoor guides. DeArmon became heavily involved in the book publishing trade, especially in the Bay Area. Her expansive marketing ideas, along with some naïveté on her part about business partners, sapped energy and resources from both herself and her company, with Foghorn often not delivering the projected promotional and bottom-line results. The author’s dominance over the company’s direction left Dave feeling less like a partner and more like a cog in a machine, and he left Foghorn in 1992: “The recurring theme was that I thought my ideas were the best. I was the big sister, ultimately, and that title meant I was right.” After embracing sobriety and starting a fulfilling relationship, she realized how overextended she was, physically and fiscally. In the midst of the author seeking a buyer for Foghorn, several medical emergencies, including ovarian cancer, brought Dave back to the company, although there was an acrimonious split when the enterprise was sold. DeArmon is upfront that many of the characters, especially the “good ol’ boys” who usually behave badly, are mashups of people she has met along the way, although they are fully believable. Conversations, also fictional, are convincing and fun to read. The family dynamics have the ring of truth, and she is unsparing in portraying the flaws and changes occurring in her clan and herself. The descriptions of the inner workings of book publishing, especially in the Bay Area, will captivate bibliophiles.

A publishing executive’s unsparing and compelling look at the impact of a small press.