Yes, I seem to have a cold and today is my only day off for the next seven days. (Hooray for Passover, which means a couple days off, not because I’m particularly religious — I am managing the trick of being nonobservant in two faiths, although I show up for all the meals — but because most bookstores don’t want to compete with Seders.)
This weekend marked my third trip, in five years, to the Virginia Festival of the Book. Lee Child gave a really extraordinary speech at the Crime Wave luncheon, one that I’m still mulling over, making a case for the Darwinian nature of fiction. Why did humans start telling stories? What was the purpose, given that almost all early human activity was rooted in the need to survive? I’ll botch it if I try to paraphrase more, but if you get a chance to see Lee speak, you should try to take it. (Of course, on Lee’s book tours, I’m not sure he has a chance to speak. My sense is that it’s sort of like Beatlemania, with women screaming so loudly that Lee can’t be heard. To date, there are 20,000 “Reacher’s Creatures” — fans of Lee’s hero, Jack Reacher. If you know anything about publishing, you know how extraordinary this is.)
Lee and I began publishing the same year, 1997; I remember seeing him accept the Anthony Award for Best First Novel at Bouchercon in Philadelphia. From the outside, his success has seemed meteoric, but Lee said something this weekend that indicated it didn’t always feel that way to him. Fired from his job as a television director in England, he reinvented himself at midlife. In his final months at his job, he was a shop steward. In my final months at my job, I was my shop steward’s best customer. Lee seemed to relish his battles with management far more than I did, creating a network of spies and specialists: Imagine “24″ played for slightly lower stakes, with custodians fishing confidential memos from the trash and computer experts pirating hard drives away in the night, copying all the files, and returning them before management arrived at 9 a.m.
Me, I was so stressed out that I ended up cracking my back teeth and spitting them out while at work. But you can read all about that this summer, when Norton releases BAD GIRLS. My essay is called “Laura the Pest.”
From T.S. Eliot to Beverly Cleary in just a few hundred words. Truthfully, I admire Cleary more. (http://www.lauralippman.com/july05.html) (By the way, those who have linked in the comments section here, how is that done? I want the formula. Or the code.)
Oh, one more story from the book festival. I interviewed George Pelecanos and David Simon about THE WIRE, and George reminded me of a detail that I am ashamed to have forgotten: David’s pitch to George about writing for THE WIRE was made en route to Paige Rose’s shiva. Paige was one of the two co-owners of Baltimore’s Mystery Loves Company, and she was very good to George and me, among other area writers. In December 2001, she died a most Baltimore death — she had a massive stroke outside a Little Italy restaurant, shortly after chatting up a former Baltimore Oriole. I tried to discern the identity of the player, but those who were with Paige at the time were from Philadelphia and couldn’t be sure. So George and I have decided to say it was Brooks Robinson because that makes for the best possible story. It should have been Brooks. Or, at the very least, Boog Powell.
I’m using David’s presence here to try and do a link:
<a href=”http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/books/312002,CST-BOOKS-mysteries25.article” target=”_blank”>David’s review</a>
(Thanks Old Beeg and Linda.)
I was just going to mention that.
The review, by the way, is a rave for <I>What the Dead Know</I>.
Oh, and something else Lee Child said, which I just remembered. (I’m really trying hard here to make Laura blush.) He compared <I>Every Secret Thing</I> to a perfect game in baseball. He described the experience of reading it, how he grew increasingly nervous as the book went along — because it was so good, there was no way she could possibly keep it up. Sooner or later, she’d make a mistake, and it would be such a letdown. But it never happened, and what resulted was a perfect book.
I thought that was pretty darn cool.
Yes, although I would have preferred to be compared to the David Wells game rather than the David Cone game. I’m not a Yankees hater like most Orioles fans, and Paul O’Neill is one of my favorite players of all time. (Lee saw the Cone game, while I remember listening to the Wells game on a very unreliable Internet line. ’97? ’98? Thereabouts. I’ve never seen a no-hitter, much less a perfect game, although I saw a Nationals pitcher carry a no-hitter into the ninth last summer and hit a home run in the same game. And back when I had a mini-plan for the Orioles, I gave my tickets to my parents, only to miss Wilson Alvarez’s no-hitter for the Chicago White Sox. Sigh.)
For the record, S.J. Rozan’s <a href=”http://www.sjrozan.com/rozan/absent/absentreviews.html” target=”_blank”>ABSENT FRIENDS</a> was the other book that Lee compared to a perfect game, and he said his favorite author is Joseph Kanon. Oooooh, Laura has a new toy.
June, the title was inspired by Ecclesiastes, the same book that provided the title for EVERY SECRET THING. Only in this case, the verse was “Pity the dead, for the dead know nothing.”
I found it after finishing 80 percent of the second draft,. It reminded me of the chapter in which the mystery woman thinks she’s far more worried about the dead than the living, because the living can be fooled, but you can’t put anything over on the dead.
The only significant moment of baseball history I’ve witnessed in person was Fernando Tatis of the Cardinals hitting 2 grand slams in 1 inning against Chan Ho Park and the Dodgers. (Only time that’s ever been done.)
It was cool, but at the same time it sucked, since it was against my team.
I’ve not been at a game to see history, but I listened to the Braves/Pirates game in 1959 when Harvey Haddix pitched 12 perfect innings – and lost the game in the 13th. And I was watching on television when Bill Mazeroski hit the home run that gave the ’60 World Series to the Pirates over the Yankees.
Harvey’s quote on his (almost) masterpiece: <i>”My main aim was to win. I was more tired than nervous. All I know is that we lost. What’s so historic about that? Didn’t anyone else ever lose a thirteen inning shutout?”</i>
David’s review is the first link I’ve ever been able to reach from these postings. I knew it would work because it came up blue. All the other times I haven’t been able to find a way to get there by clicking and I don’t see how one can copy and paste or click and drag because I don’t see a way to highlight them.
Can someone give me a clue?
June, the previous links haven’t been links, just cut-and-paste URLs. But you should be able to highlight them, save them, then plug them into the address bar. (I don’t know about dragging.)
For easy copying-and-pasting of unlinkified links, just triple-click anywhere on the line with your mouse to highlight the whole link.
Thanks, David. I went to a previous entry with one of those unlinkified links and triple-clicked. I was then able to drag. Yay, another one of those computer mysteries solved.
I’ve said this on many listserves – and I’ll say it again here – EVERY SECRET THING should be a primer for all parents. In fact – it should be required reading in all the schools.
Stop blushing, Laura. You know I’m not a *bull……*
Wow. You enriched literature as a whole. That review said so.
You are such a rock star.
Most significant baseball moment I’ve ever witnessed live? The very first American League Wild Card game… Yankees vs. Seattle October ’95.
Starting WTDK now.
WtDK is a very well written book. I loved it a lot. I get nervous wehn reading perfect books, too. Though, I did discover a mistake Laura snuck in, so she could write her perfect book, later, I think. It was something that didn’t exist in 1985. It’s actually pretty big. I caught it because I was there a few weeks ago. I’ll provide drinks to the next person who catches it. It’s one of those things that’s easy to miss. I have been raving about WtDK. Congratulations, Laura.
Paige was also a good person to those of us who don’t write.
Just finished WTDK. You are wicked, wicked—-never saw it coming.
Who came up with that perfect title?
Laura – I don’t think you could have named more of my favorite people in one post – Cleary and Brooks take me way back to my suburban Baltimore childhood and both bring smiles to my face. Probably read more than one Cleary in the car on the way to Memorial Stadium. (Though Eddie was my favorite, gotta say). Mystery Loves Company throws a great holiday party. Pelecanos is a new favorite for me (and for a gal who has always lived between the two big cities, he does a good job of splitting my loyalties) and Simon dates only a bit further back on the “favorites” timeline. As for Eliot, weeelll…
Must concur, Lee’s luncheon speech was wonderful. I was both entertained and impressed. (And Lee gave a very cool shout-out to Laura for the new book.)
Don,
I think when Lee’s talking about “perfect” books, he’s not talking about that kind of technical perfection, which I’ve never managed, in any book. Could you please e-mail me about what you caught?
“I did discover a mistake Laura snuck in”
Would you be willing to email me the mistake you caught? After I read your post I even went back and looked and still did not catch anything and my curiosity won’t let it go.