On the day, not the tour. I got up, drove to WBAL for a live interview. My street is treacherous, but the major streets are all clear. The 2 o’clock signing at Daedalus books is still on.
I wasn’t the only writer with a cancellation this weekend. Mystery Lovers Bookshop had to cancel two events — one with Lisa Scottoline and the other with John Banville. (I discovered this when I called to arrange for autographed copies.) As a writer, I don’t play favorites with bookstores, but MLB is particularly precious to me, so if there’s a book you’re thinking about buying, any book, surf over to their website (www.mysterylovers.com) and pick something up. They’re particularly good in stocking some UK titles that are hard to find here.
I first went to MLB ten years ago this month; in fact, it was the same weekend that Coppin State, seeded 15th, ended up upsetting its first-round opponent, and I ended up staying to write a feature piece about the team’s next game, against Texas. Mary Alice Gorman sought me out after reading “Baltimore Blues,” and told me she would be happy to have me at the store. I’ve been to the store for every single book since then, and even for one short story collection (LIKE A CHARM). So when I go there Apil 1st, it will mark my thirteenth visit to Oakmont.
All the visits have been grand, but I have particularly good memories of a trip I made with Sujata, on a June day in 1998, when we drove up and back in the same day. At the store, we purchased an audiotape of a novella by S.J. Rozan, the perfect length for the trip back. I remember listening to the story, enthalled, as the sun set and shadows began to envelop us on Interstate 70.
Irony? I told a friend that I was going to the Pratt library to hear you on Thursday and then she hears next an interview with you and remembers your name. So she’s listening to the interview, not watching, and when she hears the Lyons sisters, she stops in her tracks. She remembers the Lyons sisters. She was friends with the Lyon sisters growing up. They played together in the same neighborhood. Wow. Of course I told her that the book was not about what happened to the Lyons sisters, but that they were inspiration for the story you did write.
BTW, I am loving this book.
And you want more weird? Yesterday in the newspaper, I saw one of those two paragraph quickie stories about Brunswick, Georgia, a place that three days ago I had never known existed. (A horrid story about a little boy’s body being found; not something I read, truly, in the paper but the name just JUMPED out at me.) It’s a very weird serendipity.
Stu and I have that happen – we all do I bet, from time to time. You see a word or phrase or hear about a place or person and then suddenly, poof, it’s everywhere? Just say “Antietam” to us and watch our eyes roll.
Laura, I’m emailing you as well as I don’t know the best place to say this but i want it to be both person and “public. WHAT THE DEAD KNOW is the best book you’ve written. And that’s saying a lot given how much I loved and appreciated EVERY SECRET THING and how much I’ve always liked your work. But this is an amazing accomplishment – not amazing in that “wow, she could do that!” I don’t mean that at all, but it’s a unique book, at the same time very much in the manner i’ve gotten to expect from you in recent years. It’s probably going to be my “best of 2007″ pick – I know it’s only March and don’t know what else is coming and there are other books I need to read but you have done such a superb job here. Mazel tov.
I keep hearing such good things about the book! Every Secret Thing is my favorite so far (with By a Spider’s Thread a close second) and so now after reading Andi’s post, I’m really looking forward to WTDK. I’m hoping to attend the event in Colorado (Edwards, no less!) and buy a copy there but am still recovering from surgery (on track according to my doctor but certainly slower than I anticipated!) so I’m not sure I’ll be up to it.
Diane, in Edwards
If you want an autography copy of the Banville book, probably Politics & Prose is the best bet – I heard he was stuck in DC and the West Coast Swing is in jeopardy (was supposed to be a Bat Segundo guest but the interview’s been postponed.)
Laura-
S.J. Rozan’s “A Tale About a Tiger,” with Bill and Lydia? Read by….um….Patricia Kalember? From a series of audio-only stories put together by…um…Otto Penzler?
If so, I found that tape in a Vail, Colorado bookstore years ago, before I barely knew any of you guys, brought it home, and listened to it on the way back from Cooperstown one day. Laughed so hard at a joke Bill made that I swerved the car.
Course, if you’re thinking of another audio, then, well, never mind.
Joe,
Yes, that’s it, absolutely. My fractured memory could pull only “Tiger” and “that actress from thirtysomething.” There was something about it that just made it perfect for a car ride. I remember it as a Lydia tale, relatively light and funny.
P.S. Andi, I’m still basking in your comments, not sure what to say yet, but — thank you.