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Small publisher hits it big with Ang Lee

Written by Sevencam
Tuesday, 03 February 2009 00:00

We're not normally ones for publishing press releases (well, it's a bit lazy isn't it?), unless it's related to The Issue section, but we've just received this cool story about how a small indie publishing company published a memoir that is now being made into a film by Brokeback Mountain director, Ang Lee.

As of this past April, Square One Publishers, Inc. has signed an agreement with Focus Features and Oscar-winning director Ang Lee to produce and release a feature film based on the memoir title Taking Woodstock by Elliot Tiber with Tom Monte. The announcement was made in Los Angeles by Focus Features CEO James Schamus, who has collaborated with Ang Lee on several previous films and who will write the film’s screenplay.

 

What brought a small Long Island book publishing company to this amazing moment? Ask Square One president Rudy Shur, and he will tell you, “It’s an incredible mix of faith and fate—with a little bit of luck thrown in.” When he decided to publish Taking Woodstock back in 2005, Shur realized it would be unlike any book that Square One had ever published. Known primarily as a publisher of best-selling nonfiction niche titles—first with Avery Publishing Group, and now with Square One Publishers—Shur was initially reluctant to publish a memoir. Then again, he had never encountered a story about Woodstock quite like this.

Taking Woodstock is the true behind-the-scenes story of Elliot Tiber, the man who rescued the original 1969 Woodstock Arts & Music Festival from cancellation. Elliot, along with his parents, owned an upstate New York motel called the “El Monaco.” He was working in Greenwich Village in the summer of 1969, and had so far managed to keep his gay lifestyle a secret from his family. Then on June 28, 1969, Elliot walked into the Stonewall Inn and became embroiled in a riot that would galvanize the American gay movement. Later, on July 15, when Elliot learned that the Woodstock Concert promoters were unable to stage the show in Wallkill—a town near his family’s motel—he offered them a new venue. Soon he was swept up in a vortex that would change his life forever.

In many ways, the story of how Elliot Tiber transformed himself from a dutiful son of emigrant Jewish parents into a liberated and creative entrepreneur reminded Shur of his own life. “Elliot and I,” notes Shur, “both came from dysfunctional families, trapped in Brooklyn and the Bronx, respectively, during the mid-fifties. When I read about Elliot’s angst, his feelings of being trapped and his longing for a better life, I saw a bit of myself, too. And for so many people my age, that’s what Woodstock was all about—freedom to live in our own time, in our own way, on our own terms.”

Shur liked Elliot Tiber’s story enough to want to publish it. However, he felt the book required a tight storytelling narrative alongside Tiber’s distinctive and often absurdist style of humor. Sensing that another writer would provide Tiber with some outside perspective on his very inside story, Shur employed Tom Monte as the co-writer. Working closely with Square One’s executive editor Joanne Abrams, Tiber and Monte crafted a finished book that was as much wildness and pathos as it was plot and wisdom. Shur felt the story was ready to be told.

Upon publication in August 2007, Taking Woodstock received positive and passionate reviews from such publications as Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and Foreword Magazine, among others. While the big buzz that was expected from the East Coast continued to elude both publisher and author, a chance call from San Francisco in early September 2007 set things into motion. The popular bookstore A Different Light called Square One marketing/publicity director Anthony Pomes, asking if Elliot Tiber could participate in a bookstore event. Pomes then quickly coordinated a series of additional West Coast book signings for Tiber, along with various local media bookings.

On October 5, while waiting to appear on the CBS-affiliate TV show Bay Sunday, Elliot Tiber found himself sitting alone in the green room until the next scheduled guest arrived. To his amazement, the guest was Ang Lee, the Oscar-winning film director of world renown. Ang had been booked on the show to promote his film Lust, Caution (the film had already won Lee his second Golden Lion award a month before at the Venice Film Festival). “It felt more like dream than reality,” says Tiber of this chance meeting with the Taiwan-born director. “Here I am, telling my life’s story to everybody on the West Coast, hoping for a miracle. And just like that, in walks Ang Lee.”

Tiber made the most of his serendipitous talk with Lee, explaining his tale and impressing on the director that his unknown story was “the” story behind Woodstock. During his own TV interview that morning, Ang Lee was asked what his next film project might be. With a subtle nod and a wink, the director said that the idea could come from anywhere. Less than a year after that fateful “green room” meeting, both author and publisher are bowled over by the fact that Lee chose to base his next film on Taking Woodstock. As Rudy Shur notes, “To have the man who brought Brokeback Mountain to mainstream America now decide to direct a film based on Elliot Tiber’s story is a perfect marriage of material and method. This could be one for the history books—and perhaps our biggest bestseller.”

As for Elliot Tiber, he feels blessed that his story will be told by such an important and acclaimed filmmaker. “Getting the ‘Yes’ from Ang Lee on this deal,” says Tiber, “is truly the ultimate trip. I have found in my life that whether you find the action, or the action finds you, the crucial thing is to act—and always now.” For Rudy Shur and the rest of Square One Publishers, knowing that Ang Lee and Focus Features will create a film based on one of their books makes the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock that much more meaningful and exciting. “This is all pretty damn groovy,” says Shur, fully aware that he is using outdated hippie lingo—and loving every minute of it.