With the release of my newest novel,
The Resurrection of Tess Blessing, coming up on December 9th, one of the things I'm most excited about are book events.
When my first novel, Whistling in the Dark, was declared a break-out
hit and New York Times bestseller, I
was utterly bowled over. Especially
after the invitations came pouring in from readers who invited me to their
monthly book club discussions, and the bookstores that’d set aside evenings for
me to speak. Almost overnight I, a fifty-seven-year-old
menopausal woman who felt lucky to remember where she’d parked her car, had magically
morphed into a sought-after author.
I’m deeply grateful for all the
time I’ve spent talking to readers who share their wine, tasty treats, and feelings. While many of their reactions to my books
have moved me to tears, it’s not always been a smooth sail. Here are
a couple of the more intriguing ones along with my responses that I may or may
not have spoken aloud.
This
from a woman at a Milwaukee library event during a discussion of Whistling in the Dark, “I like the book and everything, but I grew
up during that era and I think you should’ve tried harder to be more accurate. You do know that there were no
homosexuals in Milwaukee
during the nineteen-fifties, don’t you?”
Me: (Stunned.) “Ahhh…are you suggesting that gay men
weren’t invented until 1967 in San Francisco?”
When absolutely nobody showed up to hear me speak in a bookstore in Michigan, the sweet manager tried to cheer me up by telling me, "Don't feel bad. Everyone's probably at the grand opening of the new Dollar Store. They're giving away combs. You wanna head over there?"
Me: (A woman who hadn't had a drink in over thirty years.) "Will we be passing a bar along the way?"
This last encounter took place when a publisher's representative, let's call her Sylvia, and I were lunching together before the release of my first novel. This gal, who was supposed to be my book's biggest supporter, had just inserted a dinner roll into her mouth when I asked her what she thought the chances were that
Whistling in the Dark would be selected by the independent booksellers highly coveted BookSense list.
Her: (Snort-laughing so uncontrollably that the dinner roll became lodged in her throat.)
Me: (sitting in the ruins of a burst bubble.) "Oh, gosh, Sylvia. I do believe you're choking." I reached across the table and barely patted her on the back, just a graze, really. "I used to know the Heimlich maneuver, but gosh, my memory just isn't what it used to be. Have you seen my keys?"
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