Yesterday I came home from Miami and found a box from my publisher sitting in front of our door. Opening it up, I saw for the first time, multiplied by six, my new memoir. I was thrilled to finally hold the book in my hands, but not too crazy about the timing: Day of the Dead.
My memoir comes out in less than a month and I've just put it here on the homepage, and also under Books, in case anyone is drawn to my website. The book ties the story of my quest to become a travel writer to that of Poland's struggle to regain its independence - and throws a love story into the mix. I think of it as a latter-day version of Reds, only this time the communists lose. And in telling those three stories, the memoir describes three heydays: journalism's in the wake of Watergate, Poland's in the last decade of the Cold War, and travel writing's in the '70s and '80s. It's my first book with a real narrative, which in theory should make it more appealing than the others. A friend and fellow author told me that these days, waiting for one's book to appear, are the best, filled with hope and expectation - a bit like spring training. Except that instead of a couple dozen competitors, authors have hundreds, and they have names like Grisham and Britney Spears.
My dear friend Pamela Petro presented her new book, The Long Field, at Books & Books on Friday evening, having come all the way from Massachusetts. It is a masterful work – published first in the U.K., it was picked by both The Telegraph and The Guardian as one of the best travel books of the year – that manages to be, as I said while introducing Pam, both profound and entertaining.
I had posted on social media about the event, and sent emails to people I thought might be interested: other writers, former students, a few friends. Some wrote back that they had other commitments, some said that they’d try to make it, some never responded. How are friends like editors? Both ignore emails.
It was a very small crowd, brightened by the appearance of one of my old students, that grew during the talk to about 16. This wasn’t great – considering the quality of the book, and Pam’s talk about it – but it wasn’t humiliating. Over the years I’ve discovered that people who say they can’t make your reading never change their minds, while those who say they will make it, often do. My only hope is that those in the latter group this past weekend will now try to make up for it by coming to hear me on Dec. 13.
The lead review in yesterday’s New York Times Book Review was of Tracy Daugherty’s new biography of Larry McMurtry. I saw the book at Barnes & Noble last week (while looking for Father & Son) and, turning to the Notes in the back, was delighted to find my name. I had visited McMurtry’s used bookstore in Archer City, Texas, in the late ’90s and written about it for the Sun-Sentinel, a story that I later included in my book A Way to See the World. Unfortunately, neither of these were cited, as Daugherty had found a reprint of my story in the Chicago Tribune (then owner of the Sun-Sentinel), whose editors surely shortened it.
In the last week I've been to three bookstores: Books & Books in Coral Gables, Barnes & Noble in Fort Lauderdale, and Barnes & Noble in Plantation. In the last two, I searched and searched for Jonathan's Raban's new memoir, Father & Son - which was the lead review in last weekend's Wall Street Journal - and failed to find it: not in memoirs, not in "new nonfiction," not in travel (you never know). At Books & Books it was prominently displayed on the table in the main room.
The rain is starting to get to me a little, though I know that - this time of year - I should be thankful it's not accompanied by hurricane-force winds. This week marks the first-year anniversary of Hurricane Ian, the storm from which parts of southwest Florida are still recovering, and that destroyed one of the state's best bookstores - Gene's Books on Sanibel Island.