Even the best titles from small presses struggle for recognition.
Not long ago, I wrote a short overview of American small presses, focusing on seven of them. Today I’d like to look at an acclaimed book from one of those presses: North Sun, or The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther, by Ethan Rutherford (Deep Vellum / A Strange Object, 2025). The novel is noteworthy in its own right, and its trajectory since publication is also illustrative of the role independent publishers play today.
North Sun is a very distinctive book, one with many shapes and meanings. It describes a whaling voyage, beginning in New Bedford, MA in 1878. In some ways, then, the novel might be viewed as a corollary to Melville’s mighty Moby Dick. Well, it is and it isn’t. Rutherford has mastered the language of that era but he has also updated it—the novel is told in brief, episodic fragments, meant, Rutherford says, to evoke the movement of the sea. And roughly midway through the book, it turns into something else entirely.
The first half of this debut novel has already captured the stark, capitalistic ethos of its time and the brutality inherent in the whaling industry. Then it calls upon magic (and a kind of magical realism) by introducing Old Sorrel, a shape-shifting, avenging bird-man-spirit who arrives to protect the two young boys on the ship from further depredations and to punish the rest of its passengers and crew for their unthinking cruelty and environmental exploitation. All while the text remains, as novelist Jennifer duBois said in her review of North Sun, “haunting, hallucinatory, and unrelentingly gorgeous.”
The contrasting narrative techniques between the novel’s two halves make North Sun a book readers are likely to remember, and to ponder. Its resonance helped make it a finalist for the 2025 National Book Awards; it was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize as well.
OK, then. Here we have a striking debut novel, favorably reviewed by a number of discriminating readers and by Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. A novel that was nominated for some prestigious prizes. And, a novel that was ignored by the majority of mainstream reviewers.
Why? Why no reviews in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal? Why no reviews in the Boston Globe or the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times or the San Francisico Chronicle? Why no reviews in the New York Review of Books or the London Review of Books? How did the New Yorker and the Atlantic manage to miss North Sun? How did the UK’s Guardian?
The problem is twofold, I believe. First, many of the major English language newspapers and magazines are walking a financial tightrope and simply don’t have the reviewing resources to range widely. This is unfortunate, for it means the reviews that are allocated are likely to focus on popular Big Five publishing house titles. Second, even for the publications that do have adequate resources, reviewers’ attention is all too often directed at the steady incoming flow of Big Five titles. For a small house like Deep Vellum and its A Strange Object imprint, it frequently requires advertising and marketing to spread word of mouth and gain notice. It takes money.
Obviously, this is not as it should be. In an ideal world, all reviewers’ antennae would be sensitive to the best books from every publisher. Sadly, we’re not there yet.
Not long ago, I received a fundraising email from Deep Vellum. They needed to raise $25,000 for the rights to use a “National Book Award Finalist” graphic on the cover of North Sun (and they managed to do so). The Deep Vellum website also features a “DONATE NOW!” banner at the top of its home page. The press has published a number of highly praised novels lately (Solenoid by Mircea Cǎrtǎrescu is another example), but funding remains top of mind.
I realize you could argue that the difficulties small presses are having with recognition is not the most urgent problem we collectively face in these ominous and demoralizing times. But small presses play an important role on the positive side of our culture nonetheless, and they do deserve to be supported. What’s more, small press books come with a notable, built-in bonus: start a great read from a valiant independent publisher and you’re bound to feel better, both while reading and for some time thereafter.
P.S. Just two days ago, Literary Hub included North Sun in its list of 43 Favorite Books of 2025. Bravo.