LS: Friends Indeed

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Thanks to Brian and David for making the effort to come to Carmel, Indiana, last night. I have to say, I love meeting TMP denizens on the road.

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7 thoughts on “LS: Friends Indeed”

  1. It was lots of fun!

    As I reported over at good ol’ Nancy Nall Derringer’s site (www.nancynall.com) -

    Thursday I skipped lunch so as to leave work a little early, and head for the library in Carmel (a northern suburb of Indianapolis). Laura Lippman was scheduled for a 7 pm discussion of her new book Life Sentences, which sounded altogether alluring to me. On one hand, the author�s career is on a definite upward arc, which radiates an interesting vibe; and on the other hand, her writing is quite good. Being a father of daughters, I find the girls that populate her stories fascinating (and more than a little terrifying!) – in the small things (leaving aside the murder and mayhem!) they have the ring of truth in them.

    My first exposure to her writing was her informally interactive website �The Memory Project� , thanks to Nance (of course), and then the short story collection Hardly Knew Her (which I got for Christmas, and which I loved!), and then her �stand alone� novel To the Power of Three (which I REALLY loved!), and then her enthralling first Tess Monaghan book Baltimore Blues. Upon arriving at the large, new-looking and beautiful library, I had 30 minutes to spare, and rolled into Carmel�s arts district, hoping to find a bite to eat. But every place looked very fancy-foo-foo, so that mission was scrubbed and (after snapping a picture of a particularly striking bit of street sculpture) I went back to the library and headed for the event.

    This turned out to be a good decision, because I think there were about 100 chairs in the room, and when I walked in half were taken, and by the time Ms Lippman entered the room, I don�t think more than a half dozen or so remained available. A table toward the front had stacks of her books for sale, and I snapped up a hard cover (first edition!) of Life Sentences, plus a soft cover of What the Dead Know (with French Flaps!), and headed for a chair toward the back of the room. It was THEN that I discovered another table, groaning beneath heaping plates of cookies and brownies and cheese-cakey things and huge red strawberries and big glass bowl full of pink punch!

    Despite that I was starving (I think the last thing I ate was supper the night before!), it was apparent that no one had yet taken the first thing from there, and, discretion being the better part of valor, I didn�t think that this was the moment that I should reveal how much of a pig I really am. It was just as well, since soon enough one of the librarians announced that everyone was perfectly free to visit the refreshement table, and a small stampede ensued (with me in the First Wave). When I bit into one of those luscious strawberries, bright red juice got all over my chin and hands; luckily, the cheeseycake thingys proved to be absorbant.

    Jim Huang and Laura Lippman then proceeded to have an enthralling (very Book TVish) conversation, mostly about Life Sentences, but also touching on our somewhat treacherous memories, the essential scariness of suburbs (vis-a-vis younger girls), the process of writing, Baltimore, and various comments on current events.

    It was all good stuff, and indeed pleasant to say hello to Ms Lippman and shake her hand; she signed my copy of her book �Happy Birthday�, and indeed, it capped off an altogether pleasant day.

  4. My book came today! My book came today (LS)! Laura is at Politics and Prose next week; I hope to be able to leave work early enough to fight DC traffic, and hordes of fans, to get a seat and to meet her!

    On the news the other night, I heard a small feature piece on something called “The Memory Initiative.” It was a fascinating story of a project dealing with recording the memories of elders and others with memory loss, and very moving.

    http://www.storycorps.net/initiatives/mli

    I know that when my grandmother died, we learnt an enormous amount about her life, but now that I cannot ask, I am filled with questions (how could we not know she could quote Collette? etc.). If you have ever filled out a security clearance packet (which I am having to do again, as I type), you will know that the amount of material/minutiae about your *own* life that you don’t remember the way that the “facts” support is astounding. Of course, it can be argued that what the Gov’t thinks is important, we may think of as trivial,or worse, but that’s another thread…

    Congrats on the SRO in Indiana!
    //k

  6. Bought my copy of LS yesterday as well. My local bookstore always features Laura’s books very prominently, not only because I ask them to (the power of a local author!) but also because they met Laura at a regional book conference a couple of years ago and thought she was great.

    Events like last night’s (from the descriptions above) show why it’s important for an author to go on the road if they can. People never forget you or your books.

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