Salem's new lot - Boston World .

Kameron Merritt

01 August 2008

Whilst Salem hopes "The Lace Reader" will draw travellers to the town, writer and publisher hope the town's attractions will brace the book. "It has been the best thing to fall into Salem's lap, for promotion and marketing" asserted Kate Fox, director of Destination Salem, the tourism bureau. The new edition hits book shop shelves today with a big 1st printing of 150000. Sandy Barry ( Brunonia is a pen name ), 47, was born in Salem and raised in bordering Marblehead. In 1995 she returned from L. A. , where she had worked as a screenwriter, and started to write a novel.

"The Lace Reader" concerns Towner Whitney, one of a family of ladies with the power to see the future in the patterns of Ipswich lace. Shortly she's drawn into a maelstrom concerning putative local magicians, a loony evangelical cult, and a love affair with a town investigator. When Morrow acquired her book, Barry saw appealing synergies available. She discussed the concept to Fox and to Morrow, and a burst of collusion followed.

Morrow sent a film crew to Salem to make a video of scenes discussed in the book, in addition to a lacemaker at work. Morrow also revealed up a Salem walking-tour map, showing scenes in the book. The 1st Church of Salem permitted filming of Barry in the refuge. The Salem Trolley will be offering "Lace Reader" tours. Morrow will run the competition and pay the winners ' airfare, but everything else is made a contribution by the neighbors. Whilst that's good short-term PR for a new book, it can gain advantage a town for years. In fiction, the closest case law is John Berendt's 1994 megaseller, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" set in Savannah, Ga. "It's still going on" recounted Lindsay Whitaker of the Savannah Area Convention Visitors Bureau. "It's a technique to cast a focus on Salem" Mayor Kim Driscoll declared. "We're a tiny town with no major roads or producing. The majority know Salem from the hag hysteria, but that was just 6 weeks. 'The Lace Reader ' keeps that part in but touches on so much more that's worthwhile.".

Barry claimed she is pleased that her hometown has a virtual life, in her very own book, and so the real Salem may reap the advantages. "I was hoping this would occur for Salem" she revealed, "because I adore it so much here. It is one of the friendliest places I have ever been, with a large amount of history and smashing architecture." She's already 200 pages into her next novel.