The Frankfurt Kabuff Critical Edition

When violence breaks out at the stands of far-right publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Beatrice Deft is provoked into action. An alienated Australian high school teacher who finds herself at the centre of the global book industry, Beatrice encounters a cast of characters including the very hot Caspian Schorle (German police officer), Kurt Weidenfeld (left-wing German publisher), and White Storm (a neo-Nazi publishing organisation). Such is the premise of The Frankfurt Kabuff, a comic erotic thriller about the publishing industry originally self-published under the pseudonym Blaire Squiscoll. With The Frankfurt Kabuff Critical Edition, Blaire Squiscoll is revealed as the pen name of Beth Driscoll and Claire Squires, who created the novella in the midst of fieldwork at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Published for the first time as a full critical edition, this experimental, playful work combines critical and creative modes for new perspectives on the publishing industry and creative economies. The Frankfurt Kabuff Critical Edition enriches the novella with an introduction, annotated text, 15 essays by leading scholars and practitioners, and additional creative assemblages. This highly unusual research project offers insights for students, academics and publishers alike.

Claire Squires is Professor of Publishing Studies at the University of Stirling. Her publications include Marketing Literature: the Making of Contemporary Writing in Britain and as co-editor The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Vol 7: The Twentieth Century and Beyond. With Beth Driscoll, she is co-founder of Ullapoolism. Beth Driscoll is Associate Professor of Publishing and Communications at the University of Melbourne. Her books include The New Literary Middlebrow: Tastemakers and Reading in the Twenty-First Century (2014) and, with Kim WiIlkins and Lisa Fletcher, Genre Worlds (2022). With Claire Squires, she is the co-founder of Ullapoolism.

- Part I- Introduction - The Frankfurt Kabuff as Creative Critique ∼ Beth Driscoll and Claire Squires- Part II- The Annotated Text of The Frankfurt Kabuff: A Beatrice Deft (Comic Erotic) Thriller ∼ Blaire Squiscoll- Part III- Critical Essays- Genesis ∼ Kim Wilkins- Unplugging the Circuit: Historical Perspectives on Why Scholars Think Writing and Reading Books is the Easy Part ∼ Leslie Howsam - Rectangularity and The Frankfurt Kabuff ∼ Ian Gadd - Signature Cocktail: Negronis as Method in The Frankfurt Kabuff ∼ Julie Rak - The Frankfurt Kabuff and the Historical Sociology of the Detective Genre ∼ Bridget Fowler - Tinker, Tailor, Driscoll, Squires: Book Fairs and Liberal Bookism in The Russia House and The Frankfurt Kabuff ∼ Mark Banks- Romancing Book Culture ∼ Sarah Brouillette- Politics at Play in the Kabuff: The Buchmesse as a Political Space ∼ Corinna Norrick-Rühl- Charting a Path for Social Change, One Negroni at a Time: The Frankfurt Kabuff ∼ Doris Ruth Eikhof - A Frankfurt Memoir (inspired by The Frankfurt Kabuff) ∼ Arpita Das - OuFiPo: Hypothetical Film Criticism (or Kabuff! The Film Musical) ∼ Elizabeth Ezra - How to Take Over a Book Fair: A Bourdieusian Fiction ∼ Roanna Gonsalves - Tagging Beatrice: Fanfic as Reader Response ∼ Danielle Fuller - Kabuff or Wunderkammer? ∼ Kelvin Smith - Teaching The Frankfurt Kabuff ∼ Alastair Horne - Part IV- Assemblages- Original Plot Diagram drawn by Kim Wilkins at the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof- Paratextual Elements of The Frankfurt Kabuff Print on Demand Edition- “Dear Diary”: An Account of the Production of the Print on Demand Self-Published Edition of The Frankfurt Kabuff- Advanced Information (AI) Sheet for The Frankfurt Kabuff- Publisher’s Weekly Report on Linksphilosophie Verlag List Launch- Conference Abstract: Tante Fran’s Book Club: Solidarity, Slogans and Knitting Needles- The Kabuff Joke Book- Comic Strip featuring Nunu and Otot- Spotify Playlists- Map from The Frankfurt Kabuff- “The Corona Kabuff” and Other Stories- Acknowledgements- Bibliography- Contributor Biographies