Leaving the post office yesterday, I stopped into the old newsstand. The new owner had gotten rid of many of the out-of-town and foreign newspapers - the things that you can read online and that give a newsstand class. But he'd added books, including a section devoted to local authors.
Neither of my two books was there. True, I don't write very often about South Florida, and when I do, I do so critically. But not as critically as people who litter the landscape with corpses. I guess portraying South Florida as a playground for killers is acceptable because it's fiction, while my digs at the place as a cultural wasteland are not (fiction or acceptable). Or perhaps, because they're nonfiction, they're simply unread.
I asked the owner how business was. He said there was a problem because many of his customers saw the store as a place to buy their lottery tickets. He had tried to get them interested in books, but without success.
No, what I write is definitely not fiction.
