Presumably Y’all Know About This

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But just in case some TMP denizens missed <a href=” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07serial-t.html “>it</a>.

And if anyone new is dropping by: Welcome. This is a blog of sorts, based on a writing exercise I once used. I also hijack it at times to link to career stuff.

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22 thoughts on “Presumably Y’all Know About This”

  3. Ditto, ditto about Mrs. Blossom.

    Ours was a happy household on Sunday: I had Tess delivered to my door and football season began so my husband got to watch the Ravens (and they actually won)! I even disrupted the previously sacrosanct order in which I read the paper, reaching for the magazine immediately after Sunday Styles and the Week in Review instead of leaving it for last.

    I do have serious house envy for Tess’s house!

  4. My registration with the NYT didn’t work so i got to reregister. I’m a 26 year old member of the clergy making tons of money in the travel industry (hey, they ask intrusive questions to read on line, I get to tell them what i want. Oh yeah, and i’m a guy. Living in Afghanistan.

    So pleased to see this. Really pleased not to have to wait til my friends bring me the print version (which i suspect i’ll save anyway!)

    ” longtime Lippman readers can always hit me up for a drink.”

    I’ll hold you to that, honey. Next year in Seattle.

  5. Hey, I just happened to be in New York on Sunday and picked up a Times late in the day. I settled in at my son’s place and lo and behold, there was Tess, in bed, with binoculars. I look forward to reading the series and wish I could just go out and buy the whole story right now!

  7. I wish we could have some sort of reader reward program like that, but the Times has first dibs. Even an ecrypted/password protected version would violate that.

    However, longtime Lippman readers can always hit me up for a drink.

  8. You, perhaps, have not entered into the phase of “knowing” but not remembering. Thanks for the nudge and the anticipation of more clever, rear window activity for Tess.

  9. By the way, folks, I think Roberta may, in fact, be the first reader who ever e-mailed me. And now we have Marjorie on board, who in her perusal of the archives will eventually discover my affection for Marjorie Morningstar. I have a real love-hate relationship with the Internet, but this blog, thanks to the people who visit and comment, is clearly on the love side of the ledger.

  11. Me, too!

    Seriously, while some writers have opted to take full advantage of the serial form, there was no way I could walk that tightrope. I rather like the possibilities of revisions, the things that can be layered in when reworking a previous draft. My hat’s off to those writers who chose to do it week-by-week, but I never could have been one of them. (By the way, anyone who read Tom Wolfe’s early version of “Bonfire of the Vanities” in Rolling Stone would be pretty surprised by what it became in book form.)

    As for the idea — it’s clearly an homage, to Rear Window and Daughter of Time. I didn’t allow myself to revisit either of these works while writing, but I started re-reading “Daughter” the other day and was immediately depressed by the brilliance of the opening.

    But although she can’t recall it — this memory thing must run in the family — the idea was my sister’s. Years ago, she proposed that I write something about a woman marooned in a beach house. I think this was about the time — gross-out alert — that I almost severed my second toe and was on crutches for a week while visiting my parents at their seashore home. I had been talking about this Tess idea for a few years; Sujata Massey definitely remembered it when I mentioned it to her this spring.

    I also always liked the Seinfeld episode where Elaine and George have to interact without Jerry. So that was a seed, too — creating a situation where Crow and Whitney would have to interact without Tess. And that’s what’s coming next!

  12. Laura,

    May I just add that as someone who is more Marjorie Main than Marjorie Morningstar (!), I am thrilled that Mrs. Blossom is back and is part of the NYT series.

    Thanks,
    Marjorie

  13. I ditto Marjorie’s comment about Mrs. Blossom. She’s such a great character. And it will be interesting to see Crow and Whitney working together without Tess. But can we make Crow a little more like a regular guy? Maybe he forgets to empty her bedpan? :)

  15. Part 2 is up on-line and terrific. I will not reveal any spoilers.

    But whatever does it mean at the end of the story when it says:

    “In two weeks……”

    You don’t mean to say that the Times is not publishing a chapter next week! Scandalous! Unforgivable. I thought I could be patient, but that’s just crazy talk!

  18. It’s a feast or famine world out there. No Ravens this week, no Tess next week. But, come October, Tess is back weekly and we get Hardly Knew Her, which I am excitedly waiting for since the title story is about a Dundalk girl and, despite the fact that I live in a ski resort in the Rocky Mountains, I am a true Dundalk girl.

  21. Okay, I can survive waiting two weeks for the next Tess installment since we have 13 more weeks to go.

    Now, after reading yesterday’s segment, I’m hooked.

    Many questions leap to mind: why is the dog acting weird? What is going on with the husband? What happened to the wife, obviously? How will this mystery be solved with Tess bedridden–a la Rear Window? What will Crow and Whitney and Mrs. Blossom do to help solve this? How will they interact with each other? Can Tess get any crabbier? What will happen with the baby? On and on–a real page turner only we have to wait 15 weeks to know what’s happening; patience is required which I’ll work on.

    Best wishes,
    Kathy D.

  22. Hey Laura,
    Considering all the hoopla about the future of online reading, I was fascinated with my reaction to your piece. I started reading it and thought “ohmygod, I just love this, and I’m going to stop right here and wait until I can have it in a book.” Yep, it was one of those “I prefer to curl up with it in bed” moments that everyone talks about.

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